Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 4:13
For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, [was] not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
13. For the promise, &c.] Here again the Gr. order is emphatic: For not through the law came the promise, &c.
that he should be the heir ] Perhaps better, namely, his being: heir, in apposition with “the promise.” The promise made him heir at once, and foretold actual possession. The Gr. word rendered “heir” sometimes means one with a prospect of possession, more rarely an actual possessor.
the world ] Perhaps here in its widest meaning; “heaven and earth,” “the universe.” In Christ, the Son of Abraham, to whom “all power is given in heaven and earth,” the inheritance is seen to be universal. And even a Rabbinic phrase is quoted in which “heaven and earth” are named as promised to Abraham. (See too p. 260.) But looking at Gen 12:3; Gen 22:18, and at the frequent use of “the world” for “the world of man ” (e. g. ch. Rom 1:8, Rom 3:19; Col 1:6; 1Ti 3:16😉 and at the special doctrine of this passage (that of a righteousness for believers of every nation), it seems best to understand it here as = “every land.” Abraham was to possess, in “his seed,” every land; “all kindreds, peoples, and tongues.” Comparing Gal 3:16 and its connexion, it seems clear that the reference here is to the dominion of Christ, “the Prince of the kings of the earth,” to whom “the utmost parts of the earth” are given “for His possession,” a possession real now, and indeed manifested as real in the important respect that the redeeming power of Messiah is felt in every region, and in an ever-growing degree.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For the promise … – To show that the faith of Abraham, on which his justification depended, was not by the Law, the apostle proceeds to show that the promise concerning which his faith was so remarkably evinced was before the Law was given. If this was so, then it was an additional important consideration in opposition to the Jew, showing that acceptance with God depended on faith, and not on works.
That he should be heir of the world – An heir is one who succeeds, or is to succeed to an estate. In this passage, the world, or the entire earth, is regarded as the estate to which reference is made, and the promise is that the posterity of Abraham should succeed to that, or should possess it as their inheritance. The precise expression used here, heir of the world, is not found in the promises made to Abraham Those promises were that God would make of him a great nation Gen 12:2; that in him all the families of the earth should be blessed Gen 12:3; that his posterity should be as the stars for multitude Gen 15:5; and that he should be a father of many nations Gen 17:5. As this latter promise is one to which the apostle particularly refers (see Rom 4:17), it is probable that he had this in his eye. This promise had, at first, respect to his numerous natural descendants, and to their possessing the land of Canaan. But it is also regarded in the New Testament as extending to the Messiah Gal 3:16 as his descendant, and to all his followers as the spiritual seed of the father of the faithful. When the apostle calls him the heir of the world, he sums up in this comprehensive expression all the promises made to Abraham, intimating that his spiritual descendants, that is, those who possess his faith, shall yet be so numerous as to possess all lands.
Or to his seed – To his posterity, or descendants.
Through the law – By the observance of the Law; or made in consequence of observing the Law; or depending on the condition that he should observe the Law. The covenant was made before the law of circumcision was given; and long before the Law of Moses (compare Gal 3:16-18), and was independent of both.
But through … – In consequence of or in connection with the strong confidence which he showed in the promises of God, Gen 15:6.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Rom 4:13-15
For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not through the law.
The promise made to Abraham
I. The promise, that he should be heir of the world, was made not entirely to Abraham, but to his seed also (Rom 4:16). This promise included–
1. Both the earthly and the heavenly Canaan, for–
(1) Abraham and the other believing patriarchs so understood it (Heb 11:8-10; Heb 11:13-16). But no promise of it is to be found unless it was couched under that of the earthly Canaan as a type. The whole of the gospel revelation was then, and for many ages afterwards, under the veil of figurative language, and of typical rites, objects, and events. But that the promise was given was manifest from the passages from Hebrews just quoted, and also from Heb 6:12.
(2) Believers in all ages are called heirs according to the promise of inheritance given to Abraham (Gal 3:18; Gal 3:10; Heb 6:17-20).
2. But the word world means the whole inhabited earth that was to be the possession of Abrahams seed; and the possession of Canaan was but a small prelude to it. There is an obvious difference between a right and actual possession. The whole earth may be, by the gift or promise of God, the property of this seed, although they may not be for a good while invested with the actual possession of it. The view of the promise, therefore, must be understood of the seed, collectively considered. Were we speaking of the wars in any former period of British history, we should say, without hesitation, We were successful in such a battle. So we may, with perfect propriety, say that the promise spoken of is to us because it shall be verified to the seed of which we are a part. The following scriptures countenance this view of the promise (Psa 2:8; Psa 72:8; Dan 7:27; Isa 54:3). When the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, and thus the declaration be fulfilled, in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed; then the promise, that Abraham should be the heir of the world, shall be fully verified, the whole earth becoming the possession of his seed–the people of God.
II. In considering the extent of the promise, I have necessarily led you to anticipate my view of the seed here spoken of. Of this we have a plain infallible interpretation (Gal 3:16). That the name Christ is sometimes used as inclusive of His people, the Head being intended to express the whole body connected with it is evident from 1Co 12:12. It is so used in Galatians. For while Christ is here said to be the Seed, to whom the promises were made, it is said that believers are Abrahams seed and heirs according to the promise. And the reason of their being so called is their being all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28-29). The passage before us likewise makes the same thing evident. The seed, in this verse, is that of which Abraham is the father, in the spiritual sense, even the seed spoken of in verses 11, 12 consisting of all them that believe. These passages show, then, that the promises contained in the Abrahamic covenant–
1. Were both made to the same seed: To Abraham and his seed were the promises made. There is no hint of the distinction that the temporal promise was made to the fleshly seed as such, and the spiritual promise to the spiritual seed as such. But the promises of that covenant, without difference, are declared to have been made, not to seeds as to many, but as of one, and to thy Seed which is Christ.
2. And if this be a just view of the matter, it follows that these promises were made on the same footing. None of them were given on the ground of law or personal obedience, but all by grace (Gal 3:16). Which leads us to consider–
III. The ground on which the promise rests. The inheritance must certainly mean, in the first instance, the earthly inheritance; that which is literally specified in the promise. And it must have continued to be held not by law, but on the footing of the original grant made to Abraham and to the one seed here mentioned. The heavenly inheritance is admitted to be entirely a matter of free promise, and never can become, as to us, a matter or right on the ground of personal obedience or of law. Now, if it was otherwise with the earthly inheritance, the type fails in one of the most important and striking points of resemblance. But we are not left to inference. Recorded facts appear in perfect harmony with the apostles statement.
1. What was the reason why the Israelites wandered forty years in the wilderness till the rebellious generation was consumed? It was unbelief (Heb 3:18-19; Heb 4:2) which amounted to a rejection of the Word of God and a rejection of God Himself, as the God of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
2. The Israelites are, indeed, spoken of as continuing to hold the land of Canaan in possession through obedience; but by this obedience we must understand the obedience of faith, that is, obedience springing from and evincing faith, for, if the inheritance be of the law it is no more of promise; and if they who are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect. These expressions stand in perfect opposition to the idea of the land of Canaan being ever held as the reward of legal obedience. Many passages, accordingly, describe the obedience required of Israel as being inward and spiritual subjection, manifested by outward (Deu 10:12-22; Deu 6:1-19). And such subjection is the fruit and evidence of faith.
3. The reason why the Jews were, with such awful judgments, at length cast out from the Land of Promise, and now continue a proverb, and a bye-word, and a hissing among all nations, corresponds with these ideas. It was unbelief–rejection of the gospel of Jesus Christ (Rom 11:20, etc.; Luk 19:41-44; Mat 23:34-39; 1Th 2:15-16; Act 3:23, etc.). The curses which Moses so many hundred years before had denounced against them, if they should prove disobedient, were verified on account of their unbelief. Thus it appears that the promise was originally through faith–that it was as professors of Abrahams faith that the Israelites entered on the possession of Canaan–that the possession was continued through the obedience of faith–and that, on account of the opposite disobedience, judgments were threatened and inflicted. By faith the inheritance was obtained; by faith it was held; and by unbelief it was lost. (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
Abrahams privilege and how he attained it
I. The position which Abraham attained.
1. He was made by God the heir of the world. We must look upon the patriarch–
(1) As the natural head of the nation.
(2) As the federal head of a peculiar people, for all believers are styled the children of Abraham. They which are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. If ye be Christs, then are ye Abrahams seed, and heirs according to the promise.
2. It is necessary to keep these distinct, otherwise we shall confound the blessings peculiar to Israel with blessings peculiar to Christians.
(1) There are certain blessings of a substantial nature, every one of which became secured by charter to the house of Israel. Do we not find Scripture portraying the beauty, the glory, and the fertility of that land which God was to give to His people? Do we not find promises of temporal protection–all of which are bestowed upon the natural children of Abraham?
(2) Now ask whether this presents to us the blessings peculiar to the spiritual people? Where have we in the Word of God assurances that prosperity and worldly distinction are to belong to them? That they may belong to their condition is possible, but that they are not a necessary part of their present condition is very certain. A man may be a Lazarus in rags, lying at the rich mans gate, and he may be a child of God. But the blessings that God has prepared for the spiritual progeny of Abraham are those that, like so many stars in the firmament, are found to be studded in the rich constellations of this Epistle.
3. Both these sets of blessings were dependent upon Jesus; for Abraham was not the heir of the world absolutely; he was the figurative heir, the representative and the type of a greater One, whom God appointed Head of all things. The truth is this, that the world in its bankruptcy is to be reinstated by Christ and Christ alone. He is not only the worlds grand Trustee, He is the worlds mighty Heir. Everything has come into His hands; all power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth; and, therefore, as we have seen these double blessings, so we say that there is a double touchstone with regard to them.
(1) Christ was the Touchstone to Israel. Its fortunes hung trembling in the balance when the Lord Jesus Christ came, and who can question that if Israel had received the long-expected One with open arms Israel would have been the chief among the nations still? But it was a stumbling stone, and they stumbled at it and missed the pathway to happiness, to glory, and to continued national blessedness, simply by the rejection of Christ. Jerusalem, Jerusalem how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not;your house is left unto you desolate.
(2) The same touchstone tells upon a believer still. Everything turns upon this: will you or will you not have Christ?
II. How it was he became possessed of it.
1. It was impossible for him to attain it by law, for between Abraham and the giving of the law there was a long lapse of four hundred and thirty years. If the agency was not in existence the position could not be attributable to it. And even if the law had been in existence, Abraham by the law even then could not have become possessed of the position, because the condition of the law is faultless obedience, and Abraham was not faultless. Abraham could not have claimed his position by virtue of a law which he never could keep.
2. But there is another process by which men look for spiritual advantage, viz., through ordinances. You shall find men at the present day who will tell you that baptism is an ordinance of justification. Now circumcision is the correlative of baptism, and yet we find the apostle here laying particular stress on this, that Abrahams position was not dependent on his circumcision because the circumcision came subsequent to his gaining the position.
3. And then when we pass from the negative to the positive and ask ourselves how it was that he obtained it, the answer is, Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. It is this that makes the simplicity of salvation! Whether in times patriarchal, Jewish, or Christian man has no other resort; and an appeal to the mercy of God through Christ Jesus is after all but putting into exercise that process whereby being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Dean Boyd.)
Abraham the heir of the world only through the righteousness of faith
Note–
I. The promised inheritance–the world.
1. But in turning to the original covenant (Gen 17:1-27), we find that only the land of Canaan was promised (Gen 15:18). Along with that, however, are the assurances of Gen 12:8; Gen 22:15-18. On these rest all the predictions of the kingdom of the Messiah, even as these have their backward reference to Gen 3:15. Which also had its implicit reference to the original place of dominion over all the earth from which man by transgression fell. Of the restoration of that dominion Psa 8:1-9 is a triumphant anticipation; while on the promise made to Abraham (Gen 22:17-18) is founded the assurance, given to the King of Zion, that Jehovah would give to Him the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession (Psa 2:8). On this also was made the similar announcements of (Psa 72:8; Zec 9:10). And it is precisely upon this ground that St. Paul here assumes that the promise made to Abraham and his seed was a promise that they should inherit the world, of which Palestine was but a predictive type. The promise, therefore, clearly implied that so surely as the literal seed of Abraham were put in possession of the land of Canaan, so surely will the Christ Himself and His believing people, who are truly the Israel of God, be put into possession of the whole earth. For our Jesus, the seed of Abraham, shall not fail nor be discouraged till He have set judgment in the earth, etc. (Isa 42:1-4). He is the Heir of the world, and He shall yet have His inheritance.
2. But even this does not fill up or complete the promise. For that was the promise of eternal inheritance (Gen 17:7-8). Such possession is not possible in this probationary state. To Abraham himself there was given none inheritance, though God had promised it (Act 7:5). He, and Isaac, and Jacob, who were the heirs with him of the same promise, died without possession. Yet they lived and died in the confidence that the promise should be made good. And why? Because they looked for something better and more enduring, of which these earthly things were but the temporary types (Heb 11:10; Heb 11:16). It was in recognition of this hope that the sublime predictions of Isaiah, concerning Messiahs kingdom, stretched out far away into the future, till they laid the foundations of and brought forth to perfection the new heavens and the new earth (Isa 65:17; Isa 66:22; Dan 7:22; Dan 12:1-3; Heb 11:39-40). In and with Christ, the Seed of Abraham and the Son of God, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, we shall inherit all things (Rev 21:1-27).
II. The heirs of this inheritance–Abraham and his seed. We must notice–
1. Those who are not heirs, or are not included in this seed to which the promise was made. Abraham himself was not an heir nor the father of heirs, merely as a man, but only as a believing man. The promise was not made either to him or to his descendants through the law, which had no existence till some four hundred and thirty years after, and even if it had the promise must have been made of no effect; for the law, being transgressed, works only wrath. It was not conditional upon circumcision; for the promise was made before circumcision had been enjoined. It was not conditional upon natural descent; for then Ishmael and the sons of Keturah, and Esau with their descendents, must all have been included in the seed of promise–which they most certainly were not. Therefore the right of heirship did not pertain to the Jew as a Jew. It was needful that the nation, as a nation, should be maintained in possession of the land till the Christ should come, who was the true Seed of Abraham, and the appointed Heir of all things. But the promise apart from this would have received a true fulfilment, though the whole multitude of the seed had been gathered from amongst Gentile nations. For–
2. The true heirs are the men who are made partakers of precious faith, like that of Abraham. That promise was given to him and confirmed by an oath, as he was a believing and justified man. Had he fallen away the whole covenant must have been annulled so far as he was concerned, and his right to the inheritance cancelled. And the seed which was to share the promise and the inheritance with him was to be, not a natural, but a spiritual seed. If an Israelite attained to the righteousness of faith, then he became part of the seed of Abraham and an heir according to the promise. But the same thing might be truly affirmed of any and every Gentile who also became a believer. For before God Abraham is the father of all believers from amongst all nations, as it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations. And, therefore, to whatever nation, tribe, or people they may pertain, those who have become one with Christ by faith have given to them this assurance (Gal 3:29). (W. Tyson.)
But through the righteousness of faith.—
The righteousness of faith
1. There are two great streams of tendency at work on the ordering of human destinies. There is the current of things which makes for righteousness through the great universe, which is ultimately irresistible; and there lies in the mystery of human freedom the source of an effort and tendency which is ever striving against it, which brings men and human affairs into ceaseless collision with it, and which thereby fills the world with anguish and wreck. A new element is added to the anguish by the conflict which rages within man himself. The righteousness which reigns around has an awful witness within which cannot be silenced; and the inward protest is reinforced with terrible emphasis by all the misery with which unrighteousness never fails to chastise a people or a soul. Rest there cannot be while unrighteousness is regnant. The cry for righteousness is the strongest and most agonising cry of a mans awakened spirit. Till he has set himself with the stream, till he is borne up and on by the current, he cannot see even the beginning of peace.
2. There are mainly two methods in which the restoration seems feasible. There is the legal method which proceeds upon a strenuous effort of intellect and will to obey the commandment. There stands the law against whose rigid breastwork you are constantly dashing; study, it, mark well its lines, keep within its borders, and live. This method is now in full vogue in our agnostic schools. Sin is mainly ignorance; throw fresh light on things, educate, and save. By all means, is the response of the gospel; still one thing thou lackest if thou wouldst be saved–faith, the principle of a living righteousness which satisfies God and satisfies the soul. The deepest principle of the Old Testament culture and discipline for mans spirit is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, etc. Loving Him we shall love His righteousness. And that the love might be profound and mastering, God lived amongst us. Was light needed, His life flooded the world with it; was love needed, the love that endured the cross-bound man by its cords to the Sufferers heart of hearts. Was sacrifice needed, He made His soul an offering for sin, and reconciled the Father and the sinner on the basis of the perfect Sacrifice, which presented the righteousness from which man had revolted and to which man must be restored, invested in the glorious beauty and splendour of ineffable and infinite love. To believe is to open the heart to this world of purifying, uplifting, saving influence. To believe is to establish a vital link by which warm currents of quickening energy pass between the living soul and the living Saviour; so that He lives in us by His Spirit, and we live in Him. The germ of His perfect righteousness by faith is within us; the full form of it will be developed as we grow into His likeness, behold His glory, and enter fully into the possession of His bliss. (J. Baldwin Brown, B. A.)
For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void.—
Faith made void by the law
Law implies a right and a title; faith or grace a gift. If a person has duly purchased an estate, there is no need that he should put out his hands as a suppliant to receive the title deeds. And so if man looks for the heavenly inheritance by law, by compliance with the terms This do and live, there is no longer any necessity for the kindly offices of faith which says, Believe and live. If law enters upon the scene, faiths occupation is gone; it is emptied, drained of its contents, and rendered useless and worthless. (C. Neil, M. A.)
Because the law worketh wrath.—
The law in its relation to salvation
I. It prepares the way.
1. It exposes sin.
2. Convinces of sin.
3. Disposes the sinner to receive mercy.
II. It cannot save.
1. It gives no promise of mercy, and no power to obey.
2. But the more clearly it is revealed, the more powerfully it impels the sinner to Christ. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
The condemning power of the law
The blessings which the heirs of the Divine promise receive can never be from the law, because the law worketh wrath. To give life is in direct opposition to its very nature. To offer it to a sinner is like offering fire to a man perishing of thirst. For the innocent and obedient, indeed, it is ordained to life, and was so in the case of man before the Fall. Subsequently its operation was wrath alone. The law worketh wrath.
I. In the obedience it demands. If it were a mere outward system, and referred wholly to open transgressions, it would rather encourage men to endeavour to meet its claims, that they might hope for the life which they would thus deserve. But the law is spiritual. Such is the exceeding breadth of its requisitions, the perfect obedience which it claims, the heart-reaching power of its demands, that it charges man with guilt not only in his transgressions, but in his obedience.
1. If he loves God the law asks, Does love rise to the full measure of the precept? Is it with all the heart, etc. If not, there is sin even in this best attainment, and so condemnation.
2. So in regard to all efforts to fulfil the commands of God. The law cannot receive the disposition in place of the act, or the desire instead of the duty. It allows no deficiency. It presents as its standard perfection of character, and denounces death as the only alternative. To this man can never attain, and so stands condemned. In thus shutting us out, however, from all hope in itself, it shuts us up to the Saviour.
II. In the sentence which it passes. In this, too, it urges man to flee from all attempts to obtain life by any personal satisfaction for his offences. The penalty of disobedience is death. But death is a state from which there is no return, but by the direct interposition of Divine power. Certainly God has provided a remedy but this is not in the law, or in mans obedience. It is in the perfect work and righteousness of Christ. In this man lives forever; but in works of his own the curse abides, and the law offers no mitigation or redress. Thus it worketh wrath and wrath forever. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
The condemning power of the law
Tell me, then, ye who desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? Does it say anything to you but Do this and thou shalt live? Does it set before you any alternative but Cursed is he that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the law to do them? Has it any other terms but these? Do this, the wrath-working law proclaims; Do it all from first to last and thou shalt live; but an everlasting curse awaits you if you offend in any one particular. Plead what yon will, these denunciations are irreversible. You may say, I wish to obey; and it answers you, Tell me not of your wishes, but do it. I have endeavoured to obey. Tell me not of your endeavours, but do it. I have done it in almost every particular. Tell me not what you have done almost; have you obeyed it altogether, and in all things? I have for many years obeyed it, and once only have I transgressed. Then you are cursed; if you have offended in one point you are guilty of all. But I am sorry, I cannot regard your sorrow. But I will reform, and never transgress again. I care nothing for your reformation. But I will obey perfectly in future, if I can find mercy for the past. I can have no concern with your determinations for the future; I know no such word as mercy; my terms cannot be altered for anyone. If you rise to these terms, you will have a right to life, and need no mercy. If you fall short in any one particular, nothing remains but condemnation. (C. Simeon, M. A.)
For where no law is, there is no transgression.
No law, no transgression
Would it not have been better, then, that man should have been left without law? Certainly not. For–
(1) If there were no law there could be reward of obedience, and so the Christian religion would have lost part of its attractiveness. And–
(2) It might well be that certain courses of conduct, though they could not properly be called transgression, would yet bring with them misery and suffering.
I. The general truth of the assertion. Where there is no law, there is–
1. No prescribed mode of action.
(1) In the physical world. Suppose that no path had ever been marked out, let us say, for a planet, but that it had always travelled hither and thither in any direction. In such a case it could not transgress its law. To transgress is to pass over the boundaries, but with no boundaries determined that could not be. So it was when the earth was without form and void; before as yet out of chaos God had called the cosmos, with its light, its order, and its law.
(2) In the social world. In certain low states of barbarism there is no such thing as government. No course of conduct is either prescribed or forbidden, but all actions are indifferent, so that whatever a man may do he does not transgress.
(3) In the moral and spiritual world. There are in man moral distinctions, he knows what is good and what is evil. Because of this, those who have not the written law of God are, as the apostle teaches, a law unto themselves, for they have a conscience which approves or condemns. But suppose it otherwise; suppose man really did not know right from wrong; in such a case there would be neither law nor transgression.
2. No knowledge of sin. The law does not make man a transgressor, but it makes him know that he has transgressed. As Paul teaches: I had not known sin but by the law; Without the law sin is dead; Sin is not imputed when there is no law. It prescribes righteousness, and in so doing proscribes sin. It is when the commandment comes sin revives, and is made to appear exceeding sinful. But as long as we are incapable of knowing, we are incapable of sinning. We sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth.
3. No supreme authority to judge, to acquit or condemn. Transgression is disobedience, and this could not be except by reference to one who has authority to exact obedience.
II. The assertion in the light of Christianity. So far we have referred to law generally, but we are under the highest and best law ever laid down for the guidance of human conduct–the law of Christs love. This law is–
1. Clearly stated. In earthly kingdoms it is often a very difficult thing to know what the law in a given case is; but we know the will of Christ, for we have His new commandment.
2. Widely known. Not yet universally, but wherever the gospel of Christ is preached.
3. Easily obeyed. It is not enough that a law be clearly stated and widely known. The behests of a tyrant might be that. But Christ said, My yoke is easy. His commandments are not grievous. The Psalmist said, O how love I Thy law. I love Thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold. And the law of Christ is better, holier, and more easily obeyed than that which the Psalmist thus esteemed.
4. Of beneficial tendency. In many earthly kingdoms there have been laws adverse to the prosperity of the subjects. But Christs reign is both in righteousness, and for the highest benefit of His followers. They have liberty, life, peace, hope, etc. Blessed are they that do His commandments. In keeping of them there is great reward.
III. How this ought to affect our life and conduct. The character of a people may be known by their laws. What manner of persons thus ought they to be who have become Christs subjects? This great truth should lead to–
1. Earnest solicitude.
2. Cheerful obedience.
3. Activity for the extension of Christs rule. (J. A. T. Skinner, B. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 13. For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world] This promise intimated that he should be the medium through whom the mercy of God should be communicated to the world, to both Jews and Gentiles; and the manner in which he was justified, be the rule and manner according to which all men should expect this blessing. Abraham is here represented as having all the world given to him as his inheritance; because in him all nations of the earth are blessed: this must therefore relate to their being all interested in the Abrahamic covenant; and every person, now that the covenant is fully explained, has the privilege of claiming justification through faith, by the blood of the Lamb, in virtue of this original grant.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Some by the world do understand, the world of the faithful, or believers dispersed over all the world: and so in effect it is the same which he said before, that Abraham should be the father of all that believe, whether of the circumcision or uncircumeision. Others by the world do understand the land of Canaan, under which also heaven was typically promised and comprehended: see Heb 4:3; Heb 11:9,10,16. This, by a synecdoche, is put for all the world; and so also Tabor and Hermen are put for the east and west of the whole world, Psa 89:12. This was promised to Abraham and to his seed, Gen 12:7; 15:18.
Was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith; i.e. it was not made to Abraham because he had merited it by keeping the law; but because he had believed God, and obtained the righteousness of faith. In the whole verse is couched an argument for justification by faith without works, which is the apostles drift; and it may be thus formed: If the promise of inheritance to Abraham and his seed was to be accomplished not by legal obedience, but by the righteousness of faith; then it follows, that we are justified by faith, and not by works; but the promise of inheritance to Abraham and his seed was to be accomplished, not by the law, but by the righteousness of faith.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
13-15. For the promise, &c.Thisis merely an enlargement of the foregoing reasoning, applying to thelaw what had just been said of circumcision.
that he should be the heir ofthe worldor, that “all the families of the earth shouldbe blessed in him.”
was not toAbraham or to his seed through the lawin virtue of obedienceto the law.
but through the righteousnessof faithin virtue of his simple faith in the divine promises.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For the promise that he should be heir of the world,…. This promise is thought by some to refer to that of his being “the father of many nations”, Ge 17:4; by whom the Gentiles are particularly meant, who are sometimes called “the world”, and “the whole world”, or the elect of God, the believing part of the world; whether among Jews or Gentiles, who sometimes go by the name of “the world” in Scripture: but to this it may be objected, that the promise here spoken of is made to Abraham’s seed, as well as to himself; by which is meant not the Messiah, who is indeed heir of the world, and all things in it, but all believers, whether Jews or Gentiles; as appears from Ro 4:16; and therefore cannot be both heirs and inheritance too. Others think the land of Canaan is designed, and by a synecdoche, a part of the world is put for the whole world; but that land is never so called, and, besides, the promise of it belonged to those of the law, and to them only, contrary to what the apostle argues, Ro 4:14. Others therefore consider Canaan as a type of heaven, which Abraham and his spiritual seed are heirs of by promise. But rather, by “the world” here, is meant, both this world and that which is to come; Abraham and all believers are the “heirs” of this world, and of all things in it; “all things” are theirs, and, among the rest, the world, Christ being theirs, and they being Christ’s; he is heir of all things, and they are joint heirs with him; and how little soever they may enjoy of it now, the time is coming, when they, by virtue of their right, “shall inherit the earth”; see
Ps 37:9; and now they have as much of it as is necessary, and with a blessing, and which the Jews call their “world”. It is a saying in their Talmud o, , “thou shall see thy world” in thy lifetime; which the gloss explains, “thou shalt find”, or enjoy all thy necessities, or what is needful for thee; and of Abraham they say p, that
“he was the foundation of the world, and that for his sake the world was created;”
and introduce God saying of him thus q
“as I am the only one in my world, so he is the only one,
, “in his world”.”
And as he and all the saints are heirs of this world, so of the world to come, the future salvation, the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, never fading, and reserved in the heavens; for they are heirs of God himself, and shall inherit all things: now this large and comprehensive promise, which takes in the things of time and eternity,
[was] not to Abraham, or to his seed through the law: not through the law of circumcision, or on the score of their obedience to that, for this promise was made before that was enjoined; see Ge 12:2; nor through the law of Moses, which was not as yet given; nor through the law of nature, nor by any righteousness of the law;
but through the righteousness of faith: by virtue of which they have “all things that pertain to life and godliness”, 2Pe 1:3; and have “the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come”, 1Ti 4:8; enjoy with a blessing what they now have, and have a right and title to the heavenly glory.
o T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 17. 1. p Caphtor, fol. 99. 2. q T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 118. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
That he should be the heir of the world ( ). The articular infinitive ( ) with the accusative of general reference in loose apposition with (the promise). But where is that promise? Not just Ge 12:7, but the whole chain of promises about his son, his descendants like the stars in heaven, the Messiah and the blessing to the world through him. In these verses (13-17) Paul employs (Sanday and Headlam) the keywords of his gospel (faith, promise, grace) and arrays them against the current Jewish theology (law, works, merit).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Heir of the world [ ] . See on divided by lot, Act 13:19; and inheritance, 1Pe 1:4. “Paul here takes the Jewish conception of the universal dominion of the Messianic theocracy prefigured by the inheritance of Canaan, divests it of its Judaistic element, and raises it to a christological truth.” Compare Mt 19:28, 29; Luk 22:30. The idea underlies the phrases kingdom of God, kingdom of Heaven.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
JUSTIFICATION APART FROM THE LAW
1) “For the promise that he should be the heir of the world,” (he epangelia to kleronomon auton einai kosmou) “Because the promise that he should be heir of the world,” the Divine promise, an extension or confirmation of the promise Gen 12:7; Gen 17:8; Gen 22:15-18; As confirmed regarding the church, 1Co 6:2; Luk 22:28-30; 2Ti 2:11-13; Gal 3:29.
2) “Was not to Abraham or to his seed,” (to Abraam to) “Was not to Abraham or to his seed that is, to his seed (natural seed), alone.
3) “Through the law,” (ou gar dia nomou) “Because it was not through law;” Because the promise was before the law had been given, near 400 years, Gal 3:20-29.
4) “But through the righteousness of faith,” This assertion is another certification that Divine righteousness has never been offered or transferred to sinful men, Jews or Gentiles because of or on the basis of their morality, ethics, works, ceremonies, rites, or performed rituals of religious or secular nature. All sinners against an Holy God have become righteous solely on the basis of faith, and that faith penitently in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, whose substitutionary death offered the basis of their imputed righteousness and justification, Isa 53:5-6; 2Co 5:21.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
13. For the promise, etc. He now more clearly sets the law and faith in opposition, the one to the other, which he had before in some measure done; and this ought to be carefully observed: for if faith borrows nothing from the law in order to justify, we hence understand, that it has respect to nothing else but to the mercy of God. And further, the romance of those who would have this to have been said of ceremonies, may be easily disproved; for if works contributed anything towards justification, it ought not to have been said, through the written law, but rather, through the law of nature. But Paul does not oppose spiritual holiness of life to ceremonies, but faith and its righteousness. The meaning then is, that heirship was promised to Abraham, not because he deserved it by keeping the law, but because he had obtained righteousness by faith. And doubtless (as Paul will presently show) consciences can then only enjoy solid peace, when they know that what is not justly due is freely given them. (139)
Hence also it follows, that this benefit, the reason for which applies equally to both, belongs to the Gentiles no less than to the Jews; for if the salvation of men is based on the goodness of God alone, they check and hinder its course, as much as they can, who exclude from it the Gentiles.
That he should be the heir of the world, (140) etc. Since he now speaks of eternal salvation, the Apostle seems to have somewhat unseasonably led his readers to the world; but he includes generally under this word world, the restoration which was expected through Christ. The chief thing was indeed the restoration of life; it was yet necessary that the fallen state of the whole world should be repaired. The Apostle, in Heb 1:2, calls Christ the heir of all the good things of God; for the adoption which we obtain through his favor restores to us the possession of the inheritance which we lost in Adam; and as under the type of the land of Canaan, not only the hope of a heavenly life was exhibited to Abraham, but also the full and complete blessing of God, the Apostle rightly teaches us, that the dominion of the world was promised to him. Some taste of this the godly have in the present life; for how much soever they may at times be oppressed with want, yet as they partake with a peaceable conscience of those things which God has created for their use, and as they enjoy through his mercy and good-will his earthly benefits no otherwise than as pledges and earnests of eternal life, their poverty does in no degree prevent them from acknowledging heaven, and the earth, and the sea, as their own possessions.
Though the ungodly swallow up the riches of the world, they can yet call nothing as their own; but they rather snatch them as it were by stealth; for they possess them under the curse of God. It is indeed a great comfort to the godly in their poverty, that though they fare slenderly, they yet steal nothing of what belongs to another, but receive their lawful allowance from the hand of their celestial Father, until they enter on the full possession of their inheritance, when all creatures shall be made subservient to their glory; for both heaven and earth shall be renewed for this end, — that according to their measure they may contribute to render glorious the kingdom of God.
(139) Critics have differed as to the disjunctive ἤ, or, “or to his seed.” Some think it is put for καὶ, and: but [ Pareus ] thinks that it has a special meaning, intended to anticipate an objection. The Jews might have said, “If the case with Abraham is as stated, it is not so with his seed who received the law.” Yes, says Paul, there is no difference, “The promise to Abraham, or to his seed, to whom the law was actually given, was not by the law.”
[ Hammond ] renders the whole verse more literally than in our version, — “The promise to Abraham or to his seed, that he should be the heir of the world, was not by the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” — Ed.
(140) There is in Genesis no expression conveyed in these words; but the probability is, that he intended to express in another form what he distinctly quotes in Rom 4:17, “I have made thee a father of many nations.”
The word “father,” in this case, has been commonly understood to mean a leader, a pattern, a model, an exemplar, a forerunner, as Abraham was the first believer justified by faith, of whom there is an express record. But the idea seems to be somewhat different. He was a father as the first possessor of an inheritance which was to descend to all his children. The inheritance was given him by grace through faith; it was to descend, as it were, to all his lawful posterity, to all his legitimate seed, that is, to all who possessed the like faith with himself. He is therefore called the father of many nations, because many nations would become his legitimate heirs by becoming believers; and in the same sense must be regarded the expression here, “the heir of the world;” he was the representative of all the believing world, and made an heir of an inheritance which was to come to the world in general, to the believing Jews and to the believing Gentiles. He was the heir, the first possessor, of what was to descend to the world without any difference. He was the heir of the world in the same sense as he was “the father of all who believe,” as he is said to have been in verse eleventh.
The inheritance was doubtless eternal life or the heavenly kingdom, the country above, of which the land of Canaan was a type and a pledge. See Heb 11:12. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Text
Rom. 4:13-22. For not through the law was the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he should be heir of the world, but through the righteousness of faith. Rom. 4:14 For if they that are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of none effect: Rom. 4:15 for the law worketh wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there transgression. Rom. 4:16 For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace; to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all Rom. 4:17 (as it is written, A father of many nations have I made thee) before him whom he believed, even God, who giveth life to the dead, and calleth the things that are not, as though they were. Rom. 4:18 Who in hope believed against hope, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, So shall thy seed be. Rom. 4:19 And without being weakened in faith he considered his own body now as good as dead (he being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarahs womb; Rom. 4:20 yet, looking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, Rom. 4:21 and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. Rom. 4:22 Wherefore also it was reckoned unto him for righteousness.
79.
Why is the time of the justification of Abraham important?
80.
What relation did circumcision hold to justification?
81.
In what way is Abraham our father?
REALIZING ROMANS, Rom. 4:13-22
150.
Circumcision has been dealt with, We are now introduced to a new refuge of the Jew. What is it?
151.
Did God promise Abraham that he would be heir of the world? Where? When? What does it mean?
152.
How is faith made void by law? Is this bad?
153.
What is the promise of Rom. 4:14?
154.
Does law always work wrath?
155.
In what possible situation could there be no law? cf. Rom. 4:15.
156.
Faith produces grace. In what way?
157.
If the promise is predicated on faith, all can enjoy it (?) How?
158.
Is Christ the promise of Rom. 4:16?
159.
Is Abraham our father right now? Does it mean anything to you? It shouldit should be a wonderful blessing. Discover how.
160.
There are five or six characteristics of Abrahams faith given in Rom. 4:17 b Rom. 4:21. See if you can list them.
161.
When and where did God give life from the dead?
162.
Isnt it wonderful to worship and serve a God who calleth things that are not as though they were? Why is it wonderful to you?
163.
Abraham held one hope against another. What were they?
164.
Why were not the physical circumstances a source of discouragement to Abraham?
165.
Abraham, instead of becoming weaker in faith, actually became stronger. How?
166.
How shall we reconcile this account of Paul with the account of Moses in the birth of Ishmael from Hagar?
167.
Name three promises God has made to you. Do you feel Rom. 4:21 relates to these promises?
168.
What is the it of Rom. 4:22?
169.
Define in one sentence the meaning of faith. Faith is _________ _________ _________ etc.
Paraphrase
Rom. 4:13-22. Besides, from the scripture (Rom. 4:3) it is evident, that not on account of a perfect obedience to any law whatever, the promise was made to Abraham, and to his seed, that he should inherit the world, but on account of a righteousness of faith. How then can the Jews expect to obtain the inheritance of heaven, on account of a righteousness of law?
Rom. 4:14 For if they who are righteous by works of law are heirs of the world, their faith (Rom. 4:11) is rendered useless, and the promise, by which they became heirs as a matter of favor, is made of no effect:It does not, in reality, convey that blessing.
Rom. 4:15 Farther, instead of conferring a title to the inheritance, the law worketh out punishment, even to the heirs who, by receiving the inheritance as a free gift, are declared to be transgressors of the law written on their hearts; because where law is not, there no transgression is, nor treatment of persons as transgressors.
Rom. 4:16 For this reason, the inheritance is bestowed on account of a righteousness of faith, and not of law, that it might be a free gift, in order that the promise made to Abraham concerning it might be sure to all his seed, not to that only which is his seed by the law of circumcision, but to that also which is his seed by possessing the faith of Abraham, who is the federal head of us all who believe, whether we be Jews or Gentiles; that is, persons not in the visible church of God.
Rom. 4:17 (Agreeably to what is written, Gen. 17:5. Surely a father of many nations I have constituted thee); which honor of being the father of all believers, Abraham obtained when he stood in the presence of him whom he believed; even of God, who maketh alive the dead, and speaketh of things in the remotest futurity, which exist not, with as much certainty as if they existed.
Rom. 4:18 Abraham, contrary to all the ordinary grounds on which men build their hope of offspring, believed with a strong hope, founded on the promise of God, that he should be the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, So shall thy seed be; namely, as the stars of heaven for multitude.
Rom. 4:19 And not being weak, either in his conceptions or in his belief of the power and veracity of God, he did not consider his own body now dead, in respect of procreating children, being about a hundred years old, neither the deadness of Sarahs womb, as obstacles to his having a numerous progeny by her, though she was ninety years old.
Rom. 4:20 Therefore against the promise of God he did not dispute through unbelief, by alleging that the thing was impossible; but having the firmest persuasion of the veracity of God, he gave the glory of that perfection to God, by waiting patiently for the performance of his promise.
Rom. 4:21 And was fully persuaded, that what was promised, God was able even to perform; although the longer he waited, the accomplishment of the promise must have appeared, to an ordinary faith, the more difficult.
Rom. 4:22 This strong faith, exercised by Abraham for so long a time, being highly pleasing to God, Therefore also it was counted to him for righteousness.
Summary
God promised to Abraham and his offspring that they should inherit the world. But the promise was in virtue of justification by belief, and not in virtue of law. If the inheritance depended on law, none could attain it. Therefore it is by belief that all may attain it. The power and influence of Abrahams belief is shown.
Comment
It might be well to put before us those historic events so precious to the Jew which are being discussed in these verses.
a.
God promised Abraham a son in his old age. Abraham, in spite of his age, believed God, and through this belief God constituted him just. cp. Gen. 15:1-6.
b.
God then made the promise to Abraham because of his faith that He would make him the father of many nations if he would continue in his faith and circumcise all the males. This Abraham did and thus received an inheritance of many peoples. cp. Gen. ch. 17.
The subject of justification and circumcision has already been settled. There yet remains the promise of God to Abraham as to his inheriting of the world. This Paul discusses beginning with Rom. 4:13.
The plain statement is that the promise given to Abraham and his seed (Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, etc.) concerning the inheritance of the world was not given because these fathers were perfectly obedient to any law, but rather because of their faith, faith which prompted God to call them righteous. Reason is then given for the thought expressed. If the only persons who will enter into this promise are those who are obedient to law, of what use is the belief spoken of when both Moses and Paul by the Holy Spirit said, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness? What object would there be in extending to man grace and accepting him as righteous through his faith and imperfect obedience if it were possible for him to keep the law of God? Furthermore, the fulfillment of the promise could never have been realized on a basis of perfect obedience to law since all have sinned, and the only possible result is wrath. The law was not given so that man could receive the promise by fulfilling it. Yet if man had kept the law he would have inherited the world. Since, however, man did not keep the law we can see that the promise would have utterly failed on such a basis, Rom. 4:13-15 a
82.
State the two historic events upon which this event is based.
83.
What new thought is introduced at Rom. 4:13?
84.
Why couldnt the promise have been through law?
If perchance there should be some Jew audacious enough to suggest that he could inherit by law because he had never broken it, Paul places the following principle before him: When there is no law, there is no transgression. In other words, only when no law is present can there be freedom from sin. Since no one has ever lived in this state (either Jew or Gentile) no one can claim freedom from transgression. No one can inherit through the law, for all have law and all have transgressed it; thus all have sinned. Rom. 4:15 b
This promise to Abraham was given on the basis of faith for the purpose of showing Gods favor. If the promise had been on the basis of law, God would have owed man the promise. Then too, the promise would not have been sure, for if it had been of law it would have failed all. But being of faith it is obtainable by all. It could thus be obtained not only by the Jews under the law but also by those Gentiles who exercised the same kind of faith in God as Abraham, who was and is father of us all. cp. Rom. 4:11 b . . . as it is written, A father of many nations have I made thee. Rom. 4:16-17 a
The faith of Abraham is mentioned in Rom. 4:16 b in connection with the type of faith man must have to please God. Abrahams faith in all its beauty and strength is then described from Rom. 4:17 b through Rom. 4:22. Abraham is spoken of as standing, not only before the Jews and all men but even before God, in whom he believes, in the position of the father of many nations. Then the power of Abrahams God is illustrated in the circumstances of Jehovahs dealing with Abraham. He gave life to the dead and called the things that are not as though they were. There follow then the details of this general statement of Gods power and Abrahams faith. Rom. 4:17 b
Who in hope believed against hope are the apostles words which further describe the faith of Abraham. In Abrahams case there was absolutely no natural ground for hope. In spite of this fact, Abraham believed in hope. Furthermore, he exercised his hope through belief, against the adverse circumstances. He held this hope for the one purpose that he might indeed be a father of many nations, that the promise of making his seed as innumerable as the stars of the heaven might be fulfilled. The end in view and his faith actuated his hope. Paul then speaks of the discouraging prospects of the fulfillment of the promise, namely, the agedness of Abraham and his wife, which made it humanly impossible to carry out the promise, Then notice the great faith of Abraham: a, He considered his own body at the age of one hundred, yet in spite of this he lost no faith in Jehovah. b. Likewise, he realized the deadness of the womb of Sarah. c. He looked to the promise of God and did not waver through unbelief; he rather became strong. d. He gave God the glory. This bespeaks his humility for he, under the circumstances, could easily have gloried in his faith (even as Job). e. His faith is again described as full assurance in the ability of God to perform what he promised. (cp. Heb. 11:1) Rom. 4:18-21
85.
Why would the promise have failed through law?
86.
What is the meaning of Rom. 4:15 b? What two reasons are given for the promise being of faith?
87.
What is described in Rom. 4:17 b Rom. 4:22?
88.
What two thoughts are discussed in connection with each other in Rom. 4:18-21?
89.
What is the meaning of in hope believed against hope?
90.
Give from memory three of the five points of Abrahams faith.
Let us sum up the matter. Have you seen the faith of Abraham? Have you beheld its beauty and strength? Have you noticed its separation from the law? Paul could then fittingly say: Well, my Jewish friend, THAT faith was reckoned unto our father Abraham for righteousness. Rom. 4:22
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(13) Abraham was the father of all who walk in his steps. For this all is not limited by the Law any more than it is limited by circumcision. The promise of that world-wide inheritance was not given through the agency of the Law (which at that time did not exist), but as an effect of the righteousness which proceeds from faith.
Heir of the world.This promise was explained by the Jews of the universal sovereignty of the Messiah.
Through the righteousness of faith.As a further consequence of that (imputed) righteousness which proceeds from faith. Three stages are indicated: (1) faith, (2) imputed righteousness, (3) access to the Messianic kingdom with all its privileges.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13. Heir of the world Through his divine-human descendant, to whom all power in heaven and earth was given. (Note on Mat 28:18.)
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘For not through the law was the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he should be heir of the world, but through the righteousness of faith.’
The ‘for’ may refer back to walking in the steps of the faith of Abraham while he was uncircumcised (Rom 4:12), or to the whole previous narrative. Or it may simply be introductory. But the gist of the verse is clear, and that is that the promise given to Abraham that he would be heir of the world was not connected with obedience to the Law but was through the righteousness of faith (Gen 15:6). Any connection with the Law has to be read in, because there is not even a hint of it, whilst the connection with the righteousness of faith is immediately apparent from the narrative.
‘Should be heir of the world.’ From the beginning the promise to Abraham was that in him and his descendants all the families of the earth would be blessed (or would bless themselves – Gen 12:3). In terms of those days that indicated that they would rule over them in some way. Their inheritance was to be the world. Thus Abraham was seen as ‘heir of the world’. The thought of an heir arises from the context in Genesis 15 which is all about the promise of Abraham’s heir who would, of course inherit the promises. As Isaac was Abraham’s heir, so Abraham was God’s heir. This promise of being heir of the world is further amplified in later promises where Abraham is to be the father of many nations, and the producer of kings (Gen 17:5-6). But the promises were not made because of his own righteous living, they were made because God had chosen him and he was obedient to voice of the Lord. It was God’s choice of Abraham that was constantly seen as the basis for his behaviour, something which indicated that his blessing came through God’s sovereign grace (Gen 15:7; Gen 18:19). That that should result in godly living can then be accepted without question.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
3). Abraham Illustrates The Fact That God’s Greatest Gifts Do Not Come To Us Because We ‘Obey The Law’, But Because We ‘Believe In The Lord’ (4:13-25).
The importance of faith in the life of Abraham is now brought out. For Paul here stresses that he lived a life of faith from the moment he began to believe, and continued to do so throughout his life, and he stresses that the promise to Abraham that he would be the heir of the world was made on that basis. Note that God’s promises are mentioned five times in the passage. It is clearly part of Paul’s thesis that Abraham was blessed because he believed God’s promises.
This is in contrast with the Jewish tradition which saw Abraham as being blessed because he had kept the whole Law even before it was given, and considered that in order to be a child of Abraham a Jew must take on himself the yoke of the Torah. “At that time, the unwritten law was named among them, and the works of the commandment were then fulfilled,” (Apocalypse of Baruch 57:2), “He kept the law of the Most High, and was taken into covenant with God…. Therefore God assured him by an oath that the nations should be blessed in his seed,” ( Sir 44:20-21 ). Thus to the Jew the keeping of the Law was basic to Abraham’s life, and basic to salvation, and to entry into eternal life. But, as Paul is bringing out, it was not so in God’s eyes, nor was it true to the Scriptures.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Promise Came to Abraham by Faith – In Rom 4:13-16 Paul begins to explain that the promise of receiving God’s divine blessings came to Abraham, not because he obeyed the Law, but because he believed God’s Word that was spoken to him. Paul explains that divine wrath is produced when a person lives under the Law because a person will always be found a transgressor in some aspect. Therefore, God chose to bless Abraham and his (spiritual) seed on the basis of their faith in His Word; for under these conditions God could make the promise sure to every child of Abraham by faith, since God was distributing it by His grace, and not by their good works. Otherwise, they would all be found disqualified as recipients of His promise.
Rom 4:13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
Rom 4:13
Rom 4:13 “or to his seed” – Comments – Although the word “seed” used here is in the singular form in the Greek, we need only look down a few verses to see that it is referring to the children of God.
Rom 4:16, “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed ; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all ,”
Rom 4:13 “but through the righteousness of faith” – Comments That is, “but through the righteousness that came by faith in God’s promise of the blessed hope of the coming of the Messiah.” Abraham believed the promises given to him by God and by this act of faith he was reckoned as righteous before God.
Gen 15:6, “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”
Rom 4:3, “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”
Gal 3:6, “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
Jas 2:23, “And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.”
Rom 4:14 For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect:
Rom 4:14
Rom 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
Rom 4:15
Rom 4:15 “for where no law is, there is no transgression” – Comments Prior to the institution of the Mosaic Law, there was no transgression of the Law. If we are not under laws, ordinances and rules, then we will not become accountable to keep them. We are to submit, however, to the Gospel of Christ Jesus during the dispensation of the Church age.
Rom 4:16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
Rom 4:16
Rom 4:16 “to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed” – Comments – That is, “and be guaranteed to all his descendents.” Because the promise to Abraham and his seed came by faith, it was available to those generations under the Law and to all others who came after the promise was made. No matter what national laws men may live under, salvation still comes only by in God’s promise, which today has been revealed as faith in Jesus Christ. It is the same faith that Abraham had. He is an example of how to trust God. Those under the Law cannot enter God’s kingdom by works. Those who are without the Law, who cannot transgress the Law, still must have faith in God.
Why by faith alone? So that God, by His mighty grace, can guarantee salvation to all of His descendants. Otherwise, each group of people would have their own way to salvation by works.
Rom 4:16 “not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all” Comments – Why is Abraham called the father of us all: because in him God found a man He could entrust His promise, and who would believe it and teach it to his children after him. To him God delivered the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah. The prophecies that were given to him were also for all of the descendents of Abraham, as well as those believers in Christ today. That is, these Abrahamic prophecies were directed towards us, his children. These promises proceeded from Abraham. Thus, in Abraham rests all of the additional prophecies, for they came forth from his loins, from the children of Israel that prophesied further concerning the Messiah. It is in these prophecies that we place our faith in God. Because Abraham first walked in this principle of faith in God’s promise, he became the father, or patriarch, of all who are justified by faith.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The promise is not by the Law:
v. 13. for the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.
v. 14. For if they which are of the Law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect,
v. 15. because the Law worketh wrath; for where no law is, there is no transgression.
v. 16. Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace, to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the Law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. The apostle had explained that Abraham was intended to be the spiritual father of all believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, circumcised or uncircumcised, because he had been justified by faith before he was under the rite of circumcision. For not through the Law did the promise reach, come to, Abraham or to his seed, his descendants, that he should be the heir of the world, but through the righteousness of faith. If God had attached the promise which He made to Abraham to the order establishing the Old Testament sacrament, then it would have been connected with the Law. But the promise made to Abraham that he should be the heir of the world (since the earthly Canaan was only a type of the perfect heritage, of the heavenly Canaan), was connected with his being justified, and therefore: since the promise is not by the Law, justification cannot be either. This is confirmed by the history of Abraham; for to him as believer, after he had been justified by faith, the possession of Canaan and therefore also of the world to come was assured. And like Abraham, all his seed, all his spiritual children, have the promise of the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, Heb 11:10. It is theirs through the righteousness of faith, through the acceptance, by faith, of the righteousness which is valid before God. He that is justified before God by faith thereby becomes an heir of the world of God, the world of glory, the home of everlasting righteousness, which God has prepared for the children of men.
On the other hand, Paul argues, if those of the Law be heirs, faith is emptied of all power, is made void and of none effect with respect to its object, and the promise is abolished. Faith was the original condition, that under which God gave the promise. If, therefore, a new condition be substituted, according to which the people that have the nature of the Law in themselves, that hope to be saved by the works of the Law, are made heirs, then faith, of course, is rendered useless, it is made empty and vain, it has nothing to hold to, and the promise is done away with: the entire plan and order of salvation is subverted. And this, in turn, follows from the fact that the Law worketh wrath: for where there is no Law, there is also no transgression. If the promise depended upon the Law, upon the fulfillment of the Law, then, since all men are transgressors of the Law, the wrath of God is brought upon them, and the promise of salvation will fall as a matter of consequence. The Law, from its very nature, demands perfect obedience and condemns all that are not perfect; therefore, by its very nature, it is unsuited to give life to sinners. If thus God had given the promise of salvation with the condition of keeping the Law, promising the inheritance of His eternal blessings to them that are of the Law, the promise of God would by that mere fact be rendered of none effect. It thus follows once more that the promise is attached to faith. For that reason it is of faith, that it might be according to grace. Because of this fact, that the promise of God would be useless from the start, it is attached to faith; the blessed inheritance of the happiness of heaven is of faith, in order to be in accordance with grace. Faith and grace are correlates: as a man is justified by grace; through faith, so he also is saved by grace, through faith. And to this end has God given the promise of the inheritance of the world to come out of free grace, without the slightest consideration of, and reference to, the works of men, in order that the promise of salvation might be sure and certain, being dependent, not upon any work or condition of man, but entirely and alone on the grace of God apprehended by faith. And Paul emphasizes the universality of the grace and promise by saying that it is to all the seed, to all the descendants of Abraham, not only to those that have the way and form of the Law, that is, the believing Jews, but also to that which is of the faith of Abraham, the spiritual children of Abraham among the heathen, who had nothing in common with Abraham except his faith. The promise is to all believers, whether Jews or Gentiles; for Abraham is the spiritual father of them all, and their faith makes them partakers of the inheritance promised to Abraham, Gen 17:5, Note: All Christians are Israelites in truth, children of Abraham indeed, by the faith which they hold in common with him, which unites them in a closer relationship with the ancient patriarch than mere blood and family ties ever could.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Rom 4:13. The heir of the world Abraham and his seed together are the heir of the world; for the promise is made to both; and the original word includes both: and his seed, in the next verse, are called heirs as well as he; that is to say, heirs of the world, not lords and possessors of it, as some suppose. The world, we conceive, must here be considered as a great family, and Abraham and his seed as the heir or heirs, to whom, by the free donation of God, belonged the birth-right, the double portion of the father’s goods, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power, Gen 43:33; Gen 49:3. Deu 21:15-17. Agreeably to this sentiment, the Lord styles the whole body of the Israelites his son, his first-born, or heir; Exo 4:22. Jer 31:9. Hence the Christian church or congregation is called the church of the first-born, Heb 12:23 which is the thing the Apostle demonstrates in this chapter; namely, that we are heirs, or the first-born of the world, as we are by faith the seed of Abraham, to whom the promise was made, at the same time that it was made to him. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise; Gal 3:29. This is a very just as well as a very beautiful way of representing the extraordinary privileges and blessings vouchsafed to the peculiar congregation and people of God: for, first, this gives us a clear idea in what sense the Apostle is here speaking of the justification both of Abraham and his seed; for the promise to Abraham and his seed, that he should be the heir of the world, is manifestlythat justification, about which the Apostle is arguing from the beginning of the chapter. This, secondly, shews in what light we are to view the Gentiles, or those parts of the world who are not taken into the congregation of God; namely, not as wholly excluded from his favour and blessing, but as enjoying a less degree of advantage. The heir in the family possessed a double portion of the father’s goods, but the rest of the children had some share of the substance: so it is with the heathen; they have their part of God’s blessing, though we, as the first-born, enjoy the double portion. This also, thirdly, shews with how much propriety the Apostle uses the instance of Esau, Heb 12:16-17 to caution Christians against the contempt and abuse of their present privileges. Esau, as Jacob’s heir or first-born, had a birth-right, an invaluable blessing, which for one morsel of meat he sold, and lost for ever; and we also, as the first-born, or heirs of our heavenly Father, have a birthright, even the revelation and promises of all the blessings of the Gospel-covenant. This is our great happiness above the heathen, who have not the promises and grace of this covenant revealed to them: but we may forfeit this birth-right, and shall certainly lose it for ever, if we prefer the pleasures of sin before the favour of God, and that eternal life which he has given us in Jesus Christ our Lord; and then the virtuous heathen, who, through the secret influences of the Spirit of God, sincerely improves his lesser share of the divine goodness, shall, in the life to come, be received into the kingdom of God, through the alone merits of the Saviour of the world, while the profane and wicked Christian, who receives the grace of God in vain, shall be cast into outer darkness.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Rom 4:13 . Ground assigned for the foregoing, from onwards. “The father of all believing Gentiles and Jews;” for it was not the law, but the righteousness of faith, that procured for Abraham or his seed the promise of possessing the world . Had the law been the agent in procuring that promise, then the Jews , as possessors of the law, would be the children of Abraham who should receive what was promised; as it is, however, it must be the believers , no matter whether Jews or Gentiles, since not the law has been at work, but on the contrary the righteousness of faith .
] through the agency of the law , is not to be arbitrarily limited (Piscator, Calovius, and others: per justitiam legis; Pareus and others: per opera legis ); for, as the Mosaic law [1023] was not yet even in existence, it could in no way procure the promise. Hence it is not to be rendered with Grotius: “ sub conditione observandi legem Mosis,” because . . does not admit of a corresponding interpretation.
] scil. . The supplying of this (usually: ) is quite sufficient; comp on Rom 4:9 . The relation is realised as present.
. ] neither to Abraham nor to his seed, etc. With . . Paul takes for granted that the history of the promise in question is known; and who are meant by the under the Messianic reference of the promise cannot, according to the context (see especially Rom 4:11 ), be doubtful, namely the believers , who are the spiritual posterity of Abraham (Rom 9:6 ff.; Gal 4:22 ff.); not Christ according to Gal 3:16 (Estius, Cornelius Lapide, Olshausen); but also not the descendants of Abraham proper (van Hengel).
. . ] Epexegesis . See Khner, II. 1, p. 518, and a [1025] Xen. Anab. ii. 5, 22. The , referring to Abraham, is so put not because . . is only incidentally introduced (Rckert), but because Abraham is regarded as at once the father and representative of his included with him in the promise.
] The inheritance of the land of Canaan, which God promised to Abraham for himself and his posterity (Gen 12:7 ; Gen 13:14-15 ; Gen 15:18 ; Gen 17:8 ; Gen 22:17 ; comp Gen 26:3 ; Exo 6:4 ), was in the Jewish Christology taken to mean the universal dominion of the Messianic theocracy , which was typically pointed at in these passages from Genesis. “Abrahamo patri meo Deus possidendum dedit coelum et terram ,” Tanchuma, p. 165, 1, and see Wetstein. The idea of Messianic sovereignty over the world , however, which lies at the bottom of this Jewish particularistic conception, and which the prophets invested with a halo of glory, [1027] is in the N. T. not done away, but divested of its Judaistic conception, and raised into a Christological truth, already presented by Christ Himself (comp Mat 5:5 ) though in allegoric form (Mat 19:28 ff.; Luk 22:30 ; Mat 25:21 ). Its necessity lies in the universal dominion to which Christ Himself is exalted (Mat 28:18 ; Joh 17:5 ; Phi 2:9 ff.; Eph 4:10 al [1029] ), and in the glorious fellowship of His believers with Him. Now as the idea of this government of the world, which Christ exercises, and in which His believers (the spiritual children of Abraham) are one day to participate, was undeniably also the ideal of Paul (Rom 8:17 ; 1Co 6:2 ; comp 2Ti 2:12 ), it is arbitrary to take here otherwise than generally , and either to limit it to the sphere of earth (Koppe, Kllner, Maier), or to explain it as relating to the dominion of the Jews over the Gentile world (van Hengel), or the reception of all peoples into the Messianic kingdom (Beza, Estius and others) or Messianic bliss generally (Wetstein, Flatt, comp Benecke and Glckler), or the spiritual dominion of the world (Baumgarten-Crusius), as even Hengstenberg does: “the world is spiritually conquered by Abraham and his seed” ( Christol. I. p. 49). The interpretation which takes it to mean the extension of the spiritual fatherhood over all nations (Mehring) would only be possible in the absence of , and would likewise be set aside by the firmly established historical notion of the . The of believers is realised in the new glorious world ( , Mat 19:28 , comp Rom 8:18 , 2Pe 3:13 ) after the Parousia; hence the Messianic kingdom itself and all its , as the completed possession of salvation promised to believers, is designated by the theocratic technical term (see on Gal 3:18 ).
. .] Since the was not the procurer of the promise, but Abraham was righteous through faith (Rom 4:3 ), the must necessarily have been that which procured the promise (moved God to grant it). See Rom 4:14 . It is true that the promise in question was given to Abraham prior to his justification by faith (Gen 12:7 ; Gen 13:14 f.); but it was renewed to him subsequently (Gen 15:18 , Gen 17:8 ); hence we must assume that here Paul had only these latter passages in view.
[1023] For to this must be referred (see ver. 14 ff.) not to circumcision , which is brought under the wider conception of the law (Mehring).
[1025] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[1027] Comp. Schultz, alttest. Theol. I. p. 225 ff.
[1029] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. (14) For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: (15) Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. (16) Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
By the world, of which Abraham is here said to be the heir, cannot be supposed is meant the world, in the general sense of the word, including all mankind; for very frequently in scripture, the world in this view, is spoken of as in opposition to the Church of God. Thus the Lord Jesus, in his prayer for his people, expressly draws a line of distinction, between his Church, and the world; and declares that he prays not for the world, Joh_17:6; Joh_17:9; Joh_17:14; Joh_17:16 . And, in like manner, his servants make the same distinction, Joh 1:10 ; 1Co 1:21 ; 1Jn 2:15-16 . But, it is the Church in the world which is here spoken of, such as Jesus himself mentions, Joh 6:51Joh 6:51 . And this promise given to Abraham, was not, on any account, of a personal nature, because of his righteousness; for, at the time God called him to receive it, he was an idolater. Neither could it be for any obedience to the law; for the law was not given until four hundred and thirty years after. Neither could it be because of circumcision, for this promise was given to Abraham more than thirteen years before that was commanded. Hence, it must have been wholly with an eye to Christ. And very blessed it is to see, that both Abraham, and all his spiritual seed, are made one and the same, on Christ’s account; and in Christ, heirs with the Patriarch, in the same promise, Heb 11:9-10 ; Rom 8:16-17 .
I admire the closenesss and justness of the Apostle’s reasoning, in several of these verses, in which he shews, the blessedness of God’s promise, in direct opposition to man’s works. If they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void; and the promise made of none effect It is of no use for God to promise, if the accomplishment depends upon man’s performance of the law. And, as man cannot come up to the law; so man can never attain the promise, if it depends upon his obedience. It is of no use to hold forth any blessings, if those blessings depend upon man’s taking them, when they are put out of his reach. The prisoner, looking through his iron grate, beholds the liberty of those passing by; but his prison doors preclude him the enjoyment. The law may hold forth liberty, on condition of obedience; but if that obedience be impossible, the liberty is impossible also, Moreover, God’s promise is rendered void, if anything of man’s (services be taken into the account for obtaining it, But, if both the’ promise, enjoyment the promise, be of grace, then the grace which first gives, will be manifested in giving power to receive; and thus will it be made sure, to all for whom it is designed. Reader! beg of God to be enabled to form a right value of the promise, which is Christ himself in all his fulness, suitableness, and all sufficiency: and beg also rightly to value the absolute gift of God in it, for depending not upon the worth or merit of man, but upon the free grace, and free gift of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
Ver. 13. Heir of the world ] That is, of heaven, say some; of Canaan, say others, the pleasant land, more esteemed of God than all the world besides, because it was the seat of the Church. A man is called every creature,Mar 16:15Mar 16:15 ; the Church is called all things, Col 1:18 . So Canaan is called the world, and Tabor and Hermon put for the east and west of the whole world, Psa 89:12 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
13 17. ] Not through the LAW, but through THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH, was THE INHERITANCE OF THE WORLD promised to Abraham: so that not only they who are of the law, but they who follow Abraham’s faith are HEIRS OF THIS PROMISE.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
13. ] , strictly for . The argumentation is an expansion of . above. If these believers are Abraham’s seed , then his promised inheritance is theirs .
] not, ‘ under the law ,’ nor, ‘ by works of the law .’ nor, ‘ by the righteousness of the law :’ but, through the law , so that the law should be the ground , or efficient cause , or medium, of the promise. None of these it was, as matter of historical fact.
For not through the law was the promise (made) to Abraham, or ( in negative sentences answers to in affirm., see Mat 5:17 ) to his seed, viz. that he should be heir of the world, but by the righteousness of faith . This specification of the promise has perplexed most of the Commentators. The actual promise, Gen. ( Gen 12:2-3 ) Gen 13:14 ; Gen 15:18 ; Gen 17:8 , was the possession of the land of Canaan . But the Rabbis already had seen, and Paul, who had been brought up in their learning, held fast the truth, that much more was intended in the words which accompany this promise, ‘In thee (or in thy seed) shall all families of the earth be blessed,’ than the mere possession of Canaan. They distinctly trace the gift of the world to Abraham to this promise , not to the foregoing. So Bemidbar Rabb. xiv. 202. 3 (Wetst.), ‘Hortus est mundus, quem Deus tradidit Abrahamo, cui dictum est, “et eris benedictio” ’ (see other citations in Wetst.). The inheritance of the world then is not the possession of Canaan merely (so that should = ) either literally , or as a type of a better possession, but that ultimate lordship over the whole world which Abraham, as the father of the faithful in all peoples, and Christ, as the Seed of Promise, shall possess: the former figuratively indeed and only implicitly, the latter personally and actually. See ch. Rom 8:17 ; Mat 5:5 ; 2Ti 2:12 ; 1Co 15:24 .
Another difficulty, that this promise was made chronologically before the reckoning of his faith for righteousness, is easily removed by remembering that the (indefinite) making of the promise is here treated of as the whole process of its assertion , during which Abraham’s faith was shewn, and the promise continually confirmed. includes his seed.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Rom 4:13-15 . The argument of Rom 4:9-12 is reiterated and confirmed here in other terms. Abraham is the father of all believers: for it is not through law that the promise is given to him or his seed, that he should be heir of the world a condition which would limit the inheritance to the Jews, but through the righteousness of faith a condition which extends it to all who believe. We might have expected a quasi-historical proof of this proposition, similar to the proof given in 10 f. that Abraham’s justification did not depend on circumcision. But the Apostle takes another and more speculative line. Instead of arguing from the O.T. narrative, as he does in Gal 3:14-17 , that the promise was given to a justified man before the (Mosaic) law was heard of, and therefore must be fulfilled to all independently of law, he argues that law and promise are mutually exclusive ideas. For (Rom 4:14 ) if those who are of law, i.e. , Jews only, as partisans of law, are heirs, then faith (the correlative of promise) has been made vain, and the promise of no effect. And this incompatibility of law and promise in idea is supported by the actual effect of the law in human experience. For the law works wrath the very opposite of promise. But where there is not law, there is not even transgression, still less the wrath which transgression provokes. Here, then, the other series of conceptions finds its sphere: the world is ruled by grace, promise and faith. This is the world in which Abraham lived, and in which all believers live; and as its typical citizen, he is father of them all.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Rom 4:13 . is the Divine promise, which is identical with salvation in the widest sense. The word implies that the promise is held out by God of his own motion. The peculiar content here assigned to the promise, that Abraham should be heir of the world, is not found in so many words in the O.T. Schoettgen, on Rom 4:3 , quotes Mechilta , fol. 25, 2. “Sic quoque de Abrahamo legimus, quod mundum hunc et mundum futurum non nisi ea de causa consecutus sit, quia in Deum credidit, q.d. , Gen 15:6 . And Wetstein, Tanchuma , 165, 1: Abrahamo patri meo Deus possidendum dedit clum et terram. These passages prove that the idea was not unfamiliar, and it may be regarded as an extension of the promises contained in Gen 12:7 ; Gen 17:8 ; Gen 22:17 . But what precisely did it mean? Possibly participation in the sovereignty of the Messiah. Abraham and his seed would then be heirs of the world in the sense of 1Co 6:2 , 2Ti 2:12 . So Meyer and many others. In the connection in which the words stand, however, this seems strained; and the “rationalising” interpretation, which makes the world Abraham’s inheritance through the spread of Abraham’s faith, and the multiplication of his spiritual children, is probably to be preferred. The religion which is conquering the world is descended from him, its power lies in that faith which he also had, and in proportion as it spreads he inherits the world. : not Christ, as in Gal 3:16 , but Abraham’s descendants in the widest sense. : it was not as one under law, but as one justified by faith, that Abraham had the promise given to him. In the narrative, indeed, the promise (Gen 12:7 ) antedates the justification (Gen 15:6 ), but it is repeated at later periods (see above): and as Rom 4:14 argues, promise, faith and justification are parts of one spiritual whole.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Rom 4:13-15
13For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified; 15for the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation.
Rom 4:13 “the promise to Abraham or to his descendants” God made the promise of “land and seed” to Abraham (cf. Gen 12:1-3; Gen 15:1-6; Gen 17:1-8; Gen 22:17-18). The OT focused on the land (Palestine), but the NT focused on “the seed” (Jesus the Messiah, cf. Gal 3:16; Gal 3:19), but here “seed” refers to faith people (cf. Gal 3:29). God’s promises are the basis of all believers’ faith (cf. Gal 3:14; Gal 3:17-19; Gal 3:21-22; Gal 3:29; Gal 4:28; Heb 5:13-14).
“that he would be heir of the world” This universal statement is very significant in light of Gen 12:3; Gen 18:18; Gen 22:18 and Exo 19:5-6. God called Abraham to call all mankind (cf. Gen 1:26-27; Gen 3:15)! Abraham and his descendants were to be a means of revelation to the whole world. This is another way of referring to the Kingdom of God on earth (cf. Mat 6:10).
“not through the Law” The Mosaic Law had not yet been revealed. This phrase was put first in the Greek sentence to express its importance. This was a very important point which emphasizes the difference between human effort and divine grace (cf. Rom 3:21-31). Grace has made the law obsolete as a way of salvation (cf. Heb 8:7; Heb 8:13). See Special Topic: Paul’s Views of the Mosaic Law at Rom 13:9.
Rom 4:14 “if” This is a first class conditional sentence which is assumed to be true from the author’s perspective or for his literary purposes. Paul was using this startling statement to make his logical argument. This is a good example of a first class conditional used for rhetorical emphasis. He did not believe this statement to be true, but stated it to show its obvious fallacy (cf. Rom 4:2).
Racial Jews with the visible sign of circumcision are not to be the heirs of the world, but those who exercise faith in God’s will and word are heirs. Physical circumcision is not the true covenant sign, but faith (cf. Rom 2:28-29).
NASB, NKJV”faith is made void”
NRSV”faith is null”
TEV”man’s faith means nothing”
NJB”faith becomes pointless”
This is a perfect passive indicative of keno, which emphasizes a settled condition of a strong Greek verb that means “to empty,” “to show to be without foundation,” even “to falsify” (cf. 1Co 1:17). This term was also used by Paul in 1Co 1:17; 1Co 9:15; 2Co 9:3 and Php 2:7.
NASB”the promise is nullified”
NKJV”the promise is made of no effect”
NRSV”the promise is void”
TEV”God’s promise is worthless”
NJB “the promise is worth nothing”
This is also a perfect passive indicative, which emphasizes a settled condition of a strong Greek verb that means “to make empty,” “to abrogate,” “to bring to an end,” and even “to destroy or annihilate.” This term was also used by Paul in Rom 3:3; Rom 3:31; Rom 6:6; Rom 7:2; Rom 7:6; 1Co 2:6; 1Co 13:8; 1Co 15:24; 1Co 15:26; 2Co 3:7; Gal 5:4; 2Th 2:8. There is an obvious parallelism in this verse. There are not two ways to salvation. The new covenant of grace has made the old covenant of works null and void! See Special Topic: Null and Void at Rom 3:3.
Rom 4:15 “the Law. . .law” The first use of this term has the Greek article, while the second does not. Although it is dangerous to draw too much attention to the presence or absence of the Greek article, it seems in this case to help show that Paul was using this term in two senses.
1. the Mosaic Law with its Oral Tradition in which some Jews were trusting for their salvation
2. the concept of law in general
This wider sense would include the self-righteous Gentiles who conformed to this or that cultural code of ethics or religious rituals and felt accepted by deity based on their performance.
“the Law brings about wrath” This is a shocking statement (cf. Rom 3:20; Gal 3:10-13; Col 2:14). The Mosaic Law was never meant to be a way of salvation (cf. Gal 3:23-29). This would have been a very hard truth for any Jew (or legalist) to understand or accept, but it is the basis of Paul’s argument. See Special Topic at Rom 13:9.
“but where there is no law, neither is there violation” God holds mankind accountable for the light they have. Gentiles will not be judged by the Mosaic Law which they never heard. They were accountable to natural revelation (cf. Rom 1:19-20; Rom 2:14-15).
This truth is taken one step further in Paul’s argument here. Before the Mosaic Law clearly revealed God, He did not record mankind’s violations (cf. Rom 3:20; Rom 3:25; Rom 4:15; Rom 5:13; Rom 5:20; Rom 7:5; Rom 7:7-8; Act 14:16; Act 17:30; 1Co 15:56).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
For, &c. The Greek reads, “For not through law was the promise. “Compare Gal 1:3, Gal 1:18.
heir. Compare Gal 1:3, Gal 1:29 and Heb 11:8-10.
world. App-129.
through. App-104. Rom 4:1.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
13-17.] Not through the LAW, but through THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH, was THE INHERITANCE OF THE WORLD promised to Abraham: so that not only they who are of the law, but they who follow Abrahams faith are HEIRS OF THIS PROMISE.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Rom 4:13. , for the promise was not through the law) This is evident in the very terms; and the promise was given before the law. Through the law, that is, through the righteousness of the law, but Paul did not wish in his statement to connect righteousness and the law.- , or to his seed) This constitutes the foundation of the consequence derived from Abraham to all believers.- , of the world) and therefore of all persons and things. Comp. 1Co 3:21. Heir of the world, is the same as father of all the nations, who accept the blessing. The whole world was promised to Abraham and to his seed conjointly throughout the whole world. The land of Canaan fell to the lot of Abraham, and so one part was allotted to one, and another to another. So also corporeal things are a specimen of things spiritual. Christ is heir of the world, and of all things, Heb 1:2; Heb 2:5; Heb 10:5; Rev 11:15; and so also are they who believe in Him according to the example of Abraham, Mat 5:5, notes.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Rom 4:13
Rom 4:13
For not through the law was the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he should be heir of the world,-Abraham was never under the Mosaic law. That law was not given in the days of Abraham. He walked by faith as Gods children now must walk. On account of the transgression of Abrahams children, the law was added as a tutor to train them for receiving Christ by faith; and when he came, the law was taken out of the way. (See Gal 3:19-25).
but through the righteousness of faith.-The promise that his seed should inherit, or be heir of, the world was made to him while uncircumcised, but the promise came to him because he had, through faith, led the righteous life before God. Then the fulfillment of the promise is to those who believe, though not circumcised.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
For the: Gen 12:3, Gen 17:4, Gen 17:5, Gen 17:16, Gen 22:17, Gen 22:18, Gen 28:14, Gen 49:10, Psa 2:8, Psa 72:11
through the: Gal 3:16-18, Gal 3:29
but through: Rom 4:11
Reciprocal: Gen 15:7 – to give Gen 22:16 – General Isa 41:8 – the seed Mat 1:1 – the son of Abraham Mat 5:5 – they Act 3:25 – And in Act 13:32 – how Rom 3:20 – Therefore Rom 5:21 – through Rom 9:30 – even the righteousness Rom 10:6 – righteousness 1Co 3:21 – For 2Co 11:22 – the seed Gal 2:16 – that Gal 3:17 – that it Gal 3:18 – if Gal 4:28 – General Phi 3:9 – which is of the 1Ti 1:9 – the law Heb 7:6 – had Heb 11:7 – righteousness
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Abraham an Exemplar of Faith
Rom 4:1-5, Rom 4:13-25
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
In our verses there are several things relative to the faith of Abraham that are worthy of note:
1. What did Abraham find according to the flesh? The query is one of a far vista, for it deeply concerns every one of us.
(1) If Abraham were justified by the flesh he might have had whereof to glory, but not before God. He could have gloried before men, because men look at the outward appearances. Men delight to boast in their own worthiness and their own accomplishments. Men delight in parading themselves, as. though they, by their might or prowess, had done this or that After the flesh and before men, Abraham might have paraded his power to make money, and to increase his goods; he might have gloried in his feats of valor, such as overthrowing certain kings and delivering his nephew Lot; he might have gloried in his power in prayer; in his dedication of Isaac to death; in his years of faithful service and worship.
(2) Before God, Abraham could not have gloried in any of these, because, in what he did, power was given him of God. Before God, Abraham, like all of us, was but a sinner saved by grace. Every good he possessed in daily walk, every virtue he showed, and every act of faith he demonstrated, was all the gift of God. He was beautiful only by God’s beauty that God had put upon him,
2. If Abraham had been saved or justified by works, the reward would not be reckoned of grace but of works. The moment we pass into the realm of works, we pass out of the realm of grace. Rewards lie in those accomplishments of saints which follow after they have been saved by grace. For God is not unrighteous to forget our work and labor of love; therefore when He comes He says, “My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be.”
Rewards must, therefore, of necessity, fall far below the bestowment of grace, for this simple reason, that rewards can give no more than merit requires; but grace can give unbounding favors, because it is based on Christ’s sacrificial Blood, and His marvelous accomplishments for those who believe.
No man could merit eternal life, or Heaven, or any of its glorious and eternal benefactions, because none of us could render a service to merit so great a prize.
3. The righteousness which is by faith. Rom 4:3 says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” Rom 4:5 says, “To him that * * believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”
What was it, then, for which Abraham believed God? He believed that God had found a way by which He could be just, and yet justify the ungodly. That was the underlying principle of Abraham’s faith-not merely that God had told Abraham to go out to a country that he knew not of, and that Abraham by faith went out; not merely that God told Abraham to offer up his son, and that Abraham by faith had obeyed, and was in the process of sacrificing Isaac, accounting that God would raise him up-not that alone.
The faith that was counted unto Abraham for righteousness was the faith that believed that God, through the death of Christ (whose day Abraham saw and understood) could justify the ungodly, Abraham believed that God would put his sins on Christ, and Christ’s righteousness upon him-he believed this, and nothing short of this; because anything short of this kind of faith, God could not have counted unto him for righteousness.
I. THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM WAS NOT A FAITH AFTER THE LAW (Rom 4:13)
Here is Rom 4:13 : “For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.” These words carry great weight. If righteousness had come to Abraham by the Law, then Christ had died in vain. If righteousness had come to Abraham by circumcision, then men could be saved by religious rites and ceremonies.
Circumcision was, however, only a sign or a seal of the fact that Abraham had obtained righteousness by faith, while he was yet uncircumcised.
Thus also Abraham’s righteousness by faith, being uncircumcised, is set forth by the Spirit of God to demonstrate the fact that uncircumcised Gentiles may now be justified by faith, apart from the works and the rites of the Law. What then?
1. If righteousness were by the works of the Law as given to the Jews, then all Gentiles would of necessity have been forced to become righteous only by being grafted into Judaism, and Judaistic rites. We who are Gentiles would have needed to become Jews, sealed by the seal of Judaistic circumcision. We would have been forced to become followers of Abraham, according to the flesh, and not after the Spirit.
2. If righteousness had come by Judaistic Law-works, then the Gentiles who know not the Law would have perished without the Law. Then the whole set-up of world missions as it now stands would have to be done away. Then the Church would need to be forever set aside, as an incubus on God’s method of redemption. Then the ordinances of the Church, which link us to the Cross, would need be done away. Then the proclamation of salvation by grace through faith would cease to be God’s plan of redemption. Then the Cross would be thrown out of the plan of redemption.
If righteousness is by Law-works, or Law-rites, then Christ would have died a martyr, and not a Redeemer; a murdered religious zealot, and not a God-sent Saviour.
Salvation would have been a work of the flesh, humanly reached through the deeds of the flesh, instead of a power of God through the Spirit. Then all the songs of the redeemed in Heaven would need to be hushed.
II. IF ABRAHAM WAS SAVED BY THE LAW, FAITH IS VOID (Rom 4:14)
Let us quote Rom 4:14 : “For if they which are of the Law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect.”
1. God’s promise to Abraham concerning his seed and their heirship would have long ago faded away under the basis of Law-works. If God had promised Abraham that of his seed He would raise up Christ, and promised it solely by virtue of Abraham’s worthiness and upon the worthiness of his children and his children’s children, then Christ had never been born. Any promise based upon anything humanly dependent is certain to fail, through the weakness of human flesh. The reason the Law cannot perfect is because the Law is made weak by the flesh; that is, the heart of man is deceitful above all things and is desperately wicked. Who can know it?
2. God’s promise to Abraham concerning his seed and their heirship would long have been made impossible if based upon religious rites and ceremonies. Even religious forms and traditions, Divinely given, soon are corrupted by man. Take the things commanded by God to Moses, concerning the Tabernacle and the worship of God; all these were soon spoiled by human additions and subtractions, even the rabbinical additions to the Judaistic demands. Hear the Lord Jesus as He speaks to the scribes and Pharisees. They had come to Him, saying, “Why do Thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.” The Lord Jesus replied, “Why do ye also transgress the Commandment of God by your tradition?” These rulers in Israel had so mutilated what God had said, that Christ, said unto them, “Ye hypocrites, * * in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
Take present-day Judaism: it is far, far away from the express commandments of God. Take also the present-day church, how has it gone away from the simplicities of the New Testament church! There is not one altogether true to the faith once delivered. Thus, if salvation was based upon Law-works or church rites, it would of necessity collapse.
III. THE LAW WORKETH WRATH (Rom 4:15)
1. How would you like to trust something to save you from wrath, that worketh wrath? Why, then, does the Law work wrath? We know that the Law is holy and righteous and good. How then can that which is good, work wrath? Remember, the Laws of God, like all just and holy laws, carry with them penalties for disobedience. The Law worketh wrath, because it carries these penalties upon the disobedient.
A law unenforced by penalties is a law that is void. A law given to the lawless will be quickly broken. Therefore the law must carry vengeance upon lawbreakers.
2. The giving of the Law was under throes of darkness, and a tempest, and an earthquake. Old Sinai did exceedingly tremble and shake. The reason for all this was that the Law was holy, but man was vile; the Law was righteous, but man was unrighteous; the Law was just, but man was unjust. He who would, as a sinner and breaker of the Law, appeal to the Law for salvation, is appealing unto the sword that is unsheathed to slay him. Shall we seek light from that which forebodes darkness and death? Shall we look for mercy where justice reigns?
3. The Law then becomes a schoolmaster to drive us to Christ. By the Law comes the knowledge of sin, but not a Saviour from sin. From the Law comes the pronouncement, “The wages of sin is death”; from faith comes the pronouncement, “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Nay, I had not known sin but by the Law. I had not known the depth of sin, if the height of God’s holiness had not been proclaimed by the Law.
What then? How can a sinner be just before God? The Law cannot justify the one whom it can only condemn. The Law cannot save that which it judges worthy of death. There remains, therefore, but one hope, and that is by the way of faith in Christ, even the Christ who died, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God; even the Christ who was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
IV. WHEREIN THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM STANDS FORTH SUPREME (Rom 4:16)
Our verse is a rather long one. It reads: “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the Law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all.”
1. Faith drives us away from the Law and into the arms of grace. Herein is the faith of Abraham disassociated from everything that is of the Law, and of any self-accomplishment. It was not the achievements of Abraham’s faith to which he looked for salvation. The achievements of Abraham’s faith were the result of his faith, not the object of his faith.
Abraham looked by faith unto a redemption which is in Christ Jesus. He looked purposely and distinctly, not vaguely and indefinitely. He saw Christ, saw His atonement, saw His resurrection, saw it all; and seeing, he believed. He cast himself onto the arms of God’s grace. His faith antedated his works, as well as his circumcision.
Yes, according to James, faith will work; and it will work wonderfully, even as Abraham’s faith worked. Abraham was justified by a faith that works; he showed us his faith by his works. However, Abraham’s faith that worked was not in the works of his faith, but in God’s grace, which saves.
2. If salvation were by works, then it would be by the works of an unregenerated heart. If salvation were by works, then it would be works that are impossible, and unacceptable to God; for the very best of the works of the flesh is enmity to God, and cannot please God.
The moment faith becomes supreme in the life, as a basis for salvation, that moment the works of the flesh are denied, and grace is enthroned.
3. Salvation by grace through faith makes the promise sure to all the seed of Abraham; not to the Jews only, but also to the Gentiles; not to the circumcision only, but also to the uncircumcision.
If salvation were by the Law, or by Law-works, or by Law-rites, then the Jew would have every advantage. But salvation by grace through faith is a message to every man. All stand alike guilty before God; and all, alike, may be saved by grace.
V. THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM UNVEILED-ITS SPIRITUAL VISION (Rom 4:7)
Here is a wonderful Scripture: “(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before Him whom he believed, even God, who quickened the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.” We now begin to get an inside light on the far-flung meanings of Abraham’s faith.
1. He believed God. Here is something that goes deep down into Abraham’s grip of faith. His faith was not placed in things, nor in himself, nor in men. He believed God. How this expression brings to mind the words, “Have faith in God.” God is the only Rock that stands unshaken; He is the only Shepherd who gives His life for the sheep; He is the only Light that never fades.
God’s Word is the only Word that is forever and for aye, Amen. It is the only Word that never fails, never falters, never flees.
2. He believed in God who quickeneth the dead. Abraham, in the offering of Isaac, believed in the God who is the Resurrection and the Life. He believed more than this-he believed in the resurrection of the saints. We read that Abraham received Isaac from the dead in a figure. Yes, he saw the resurrection of Isaac, and of Christ, and of us all. What a faith in God!
3. He believed in God, calling those things which are not as though they were. Faith may have a far-flung vision; however, faith brings that far-flung vision into the immediate present. Faith gives substance to the things hoped for; and evidence to the things not seen. Faith makes things become so real that it acts as though they were present.
We often speak of eschatology, of things to come, of thing’s in the far distance. Do we speak of them as though they were here with us now? Do we believe as though we had in hand the things which we hope for? Are they ours before we get them? All this was true in the faith of Abraham. He considered God’s promises of future acquisitions as dependable as were God’s already received realities. Both to him were things already received. He had what he hoped for. He possessed what he was to obtain.
Let us each examine his faith in the light of the faith of Abraham.
VI. THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM REVEALED-AGAINST HOPE HE BELIEVED IN HOPE (Rom 4:18-19)
Our verse reveals a real faith: “Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.” The next verse adds: “And being not weak in faith, he considered not his body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb.”
1. Abraham’s faith was according to that which God had spoken, and not according to natural facts or factors. What if he were as good as dead? What if Sarah were past bearing? What did that have to do with God’s ability to do what He had said?
Must we limit God to work in the realm of the natural, or allow Him to work in the realm of the miraculous? Is God man, that His hand must be shortened that He cannot save? Is God not abundantly able to do what He promises? Shall faith limit God by man’s idea of limitations? Shall faith become unbelief, when anything outside the realm of what is possible with man comes up?
Does the fact that man cannot do it mean that God cannot do it? We are told to walk by faith: where shall we walk? We are told to live by faith: how shall we live? Shall we place ourselves inside the wonderful achievements of mortal man, and say to faith, “So far shalt thou go, and no further?” Even though man has never been able to walk, or to sleep in peace in a lions’ den, faith can so do. Man has never walked up and down in the midst of the fire, yet faith can walk there. We aver that what is impossible to men, is possible to faith.
2. As the church has lost faith in God’s Word of promise generally so, it has lost power to do wonders. We need some more Abrahams, and Moseses, and Elijahs, and Gideons, and Davids, and the like. With the coming of the church age, did God cease to work in the realm of the miraculous? Then it is because the church ceased to believe into that realm. When the church was born, did faith die? When the church came in, did God, who worketh all things after the counsel of His will, go out?
VII. ABRAHAM STAGGERED NOT THROUGH UNBELIEF (Rom 4:20-21)
1. Abraham staggered not through unbelief. We judge that the church, instead of laying her failure in the realm of the miraculous to the silence of God in this age, had better place her failures at the feet of her own unbelief. Unbelief is black with the frown of God. Unbelief is the foe of everything spiritual, and of every attempt and effective accomplishment of the present-hour saints.
2. Abraham was strong in faith giving glory to God. How the words slay us. Shall saints of yore know more of God than we know? Shall they stagger not, while we stagger? Shall they haste to give glory to God, while we languish on in unbelief? God forbid!
Abraham gave glory to God when he received the promise. Abraham never did receive a great bulk of what God had promised, but he died in faith, and everything promised shall yet be fulfilled, and his seed, even as it was said. The presence of Israel, the Jews of today, in such ever-increasing numbers, is a sufficient proof that God is about to do what He told Abraham He would do.
3. Abraham was fully persuaded that what God promised He was able to perform. Do we not have the God of Abraham for our God? Are we living in God who was, or who is? The God who of old was able to perform all that He had promised, is still able to do the same.
Come, let us examine His promises to the Church. Let us take a tablet and write them down, one by one: then, with all of them written, let us write across that all God is able to perform, and He will perform even as we faith Him.
4. All this faith of Abraham which staggered not, was not written for his sake, but for us also. Righteousness was imputed to Abraham because he believed God. We too may have righteousness imputed to us if we believe in Him who wrought the supreme miracle of raising Christ from the dead; even the Christ who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Hearken-here is the miracle of all miracles-a Saviour who is ours by faith.
AN ILLUSTRATION
Abraham, without knowing where he went, obeyed God, and Abraham has abundant rewards.
“‘Go, and dig there!’ advised a facetious miner, thinking to play a joke on the confiding tenderfoot who had asked where he should begin his mining. He pointed as he spoke to a crumbling prospect hole, long before abandoned. To the eyes of inexperience one spot looked as promising as another, and the new arrival set to work, with the result that in less than twenty-four hours he had uncovered one of the richest veins of tellurium ever opened in that camp. He was still so ignorant of what he had found that when another miner offered to sink the shaft forty feet for a half interest in the claim, the opportunity to relieve a pair of blistering palms was hailed with delight. Yet that forty feet of sinking paid something like 10,000, while, first and last, the great Melvina Mine of Boulder County, Col., has yielded nearly 140,000. ‘Treasures of wickedness profit nothing’ (Pro 10:2). Like Moses, seek the ‘greater riches than the treasures in Egypt’ (Heb 11:26).”
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
:13
Rom 4:13. To be an heir of anything means to receive that possession by allotment or gracious gift. Abraham and his seed which means his spiritual descendants by faith, became heirs or possessors of the grace of God’s favor. That favor was connected with the promise of Christ who was to bless the world. But that favor was not bestowed on the merits of law (of works), but through the righteousness of faith.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Rom 4:13. For not through the law. This order is required by the emphasis indicated in the original. Through law is the literal rendering, but this verse (comp. Rom 4:15) overthrows the view that law without the article does not mean specifically the Mosaic law. The argument is: The Mosaic law was in no sense the ground or cause of the promise, for the law was not then in existence; and this fact is the ground of the position of Abraham as father of all believers, whether Gentiles or Jews (Rom 4:11-12). The phrase through the law must not be narrowed to through the works of the law; the agency of the Mosaic law is absolutely denied.
Is the promise. The purport of the promise is afterwards given. The verb is wanting in the Greek, but we supply is, because the reference is to a Cruse still valid (or to his seed).
To Abraham or to his seed. Or after a negative binds two words closely. The promise is to both, as one. Here his seed is not directly referred to Christ, as in Gal 3:16, but to all believers, as the spiritual descendants of Abraham. In Galatians, the emphasis rests upon the fact that believers form a collective unity in Christ.
That he should be heir of the world. This is Pauls summing up of various promises made to Abraham for himself and his seed (Gen 12:7; Gen 13:14-15; Gen 15:18; Gen 17:8; Gen 22:17). The Rabbins understood these as meaning the ultimate, universal sovereignty of the Messiah. As to the main point Paul accepts this view, though the religious significance to him was different from the Jewish conception. The same idea underlies the gospel phrase kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God. The promise will be literally fulfilled when the kingdoms of the world are given to the people of the Most High, and Christ returns to rule. Dan 7:27; Mat 5:5; Rev 11:15, etc.
Through the righteousness of faith. Gen 15:6, quoted in Rom 4:3, follows the first promise; but this need not occasion difficulty, for the promises covered a long period, and Abrahams faith began at the first promise. Comp. Gen 12:1-3 with Heb 11:8.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Section 3. (Rom 4:13-25.)
This faith in One who manifests Himself in resurrection.
How plainly then has God made the history to speak to him who has ears to hear! But there is more yet to be drawn from it, which if not so plain upon the surface, all the more convincingly declares the purpose of God toward which all history moves. Abraham is here to bear witness to another principle which in the time to come was to be more fully unfolded, and to attain a deeper significance. We have seen already that Paul’s gospel begins with a risen Christ, from whom he himself learned it; but he would show us now that resurrection was always in God’s mind as the way of blessing, and that Abraham had to learn this also; no doubt in a different way from that in which the gospel declares it, and yet with the same wrapped up in the germ as is now unfolded for us in the developed fruitage. We believe in the God of resurrection: well, so did Abraham; and in spite of an immense difference in the application, the identity of principle is as apparent as it is important.
1. To Abraham and to his seed was the promise made which constituted him heir of the world spiritually. The apostle reminds us that this promise was not given by law, which therefore could not burden it with conditions that in fact would nullify it. For the law (as the Jew so little realized) only brought in wrath: where no law is there is no transgression. If sin were, as is so generally asserted from a false rendering of a familiar passage, “the transgression of the law,”* the apostle’s words would be wholly unintelligible, and perfect moral confusion would result. Then the law would be chargeable for all the sin in the world; and the law must have existed from the beginning: a conclusion which many frankly accept, but which would utterly destroy the apostle’s argument here as it is expanded in the epistle to the Galatians. There he builds upon the fact that the promise was 430 years before the law, which could not be therefore added as a condition to a covenant made so long before it (Gal 3:15-17). This would of course be necessarily set aside if it were proved that the law was antecedent to the covenant, instead of following it at so long an interval. But there was yet “no law,” says the apostle, to make the promise void -no condition attached to it to be violated, no line drawn to be overstepped: which is exactly what transgression means, the overstepping of a line drawn. Sin is a deeper thing: it is the lawlessness, the spirit of independence and revolt, which underlies, of course, every transgression, but which may and does exist apart from any law given to overstep; but this we shall come to later.
{*1Jn 3:4. The Revised Version has set this right. It translates, “Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness: and sin is lawlessness.”}
The promise then was entirely apart from law or condition: it was God speaking out of His own abundant goodness, -a covenant with one party to it only, and that One who cannot fail: He who accredited to Abraham righteousness by faith, in the same way gave him the promise also. For what is faith but the confession of having and being nothing, so that we turn to God of necessity for all? Righteousness came thus to him who consciously had none; and the promise to him who on his own part could promise nothing. Grace after this manner made it sure to all the seed; and those of the law could not deprive those of it who have the faith of Abraham, nor claim it, save as of faith themselves. “A father of many nations” went out certainly beyond Israel; and for all alike must He who spake be Quickener of the dead.
Here the true condition of man is reached, and the principle comes out in full reality upon which God must be with him to be with him at all. The dead, and things that are not! how thoroughly does this set aside the legal principle, and enthrone God in the supremacy of resources which are His alone! Man in himself is heir only to the penalty which attaches to the failed old creation; God must come in beyond the failure in the plenitude of a power which is no less grace to bring up into a life which, being His own redemptive gift, cannot again be forfeited, so as to make the failure His. Resurrection out of death is the bringing into life subject henceforth to none.
2. Here Abraham again helps us, made to learn in his body the lesson of the divine ways such as undoubtedly in those primitive days men were quicker to read in nature than we are today. With few books or none, the book of nature was more naturally their resource than ours; not certainly in this leaving us the gainers whatever we have gained besides. For God met them there with living parables of precious meaning, and the material world became, who can doubt? more like the friend it should be than the slave that we have made it.
So Abraham was made to face in his own body the impracticability of natural effort as night by night those pendant lamps of heaven shone down over his whitening head, and the word of promise whispered in the stillness, “So shall thy seed be.” Faith though he had had, he too, with us all, had thought that that promise was not quite unconditioned, as Hagar and Ishmael were witness; and Sarah had had fully her part in that which had introduced the bondmaid as heir to her mistress. Did we ever try to help God but to our own shame? So Abraham had at last to walk before an Almighty God with a body now dead, which he could reckon upon no more, and there learn in experience what, having learned, we wonder we could be so slow in learning, that faith in ourselves is only so much unbelief in Him, a hindrance to the blessing He would give us. God leaves him till his case is hopeless enough for Him to be glorified aright in meeting it, and for us to see, as else we could not, the glory of His power.
Man then is put in His place, and God in His; God is glorified and man is blessed; his ruin is owned and his redemption found: and the faith that brings us there can suitably be reckoned therefore for righteousness; it is a faith that makes God all, man nothing; “wherefore also it was reckoned to him for righteousness.”
3. The principle applies still for us: the faith is, of course, in its characteristics essentially the same. In its object it is here quite different. “It was not written for his sake only that it was reckoned unto him, but for ours also, to whom it shall be reckoned, if we believe on Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from among the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.
God is indeed in the faith of Abraham as given here and in our own the same God, the Almighty God of resurrection; but His power is now seen as displayed for us, and not in us. Yet it is displayed in regard to Another who is in the most wonderful manner identified with us, so that what has been done to Him has indeed been done to us in the best and most precious sense. It is Christ seen as our Substitute who was delivered. for our offences, and whose resurrection therefore testifies the acceptance of that which has removed them from the sight of God. It is therefore for our justification: that is, it is, in a true and simple sense, our justification itself. The meritorious cause is, of course, His blood, and so it is stated a little later that we are justified by His blood. But the resurrection is the justifying sentence -the act of God on our behalf, as the Lord’s work on the cross was what was presented to Him, -the work of the Saviour. And thus it is that we believe on Him who raised up Jesus: God in this showing Himself now upon our side in righteousness through the work accomplished, so that we know Him as toward us, and always so.
There are thus three ways in which justification is spoken of here. We are justified by His blood: the penalty that was upon us having been borne for us. We are justified by His resurrection, as the sentence in our favor which assures of the value of His blood, and its acceptance in our behalf. Finally, we are justified by faith, as that which puts us among the number of those whose Representative Christ was, and is. So that, while for the sentence and the cause we look back through the centuries to the work long since done, yet we are not actually justified till we have believed on Christ. The hyper-calvinistic thought of men justified before they are born is a dangerous fantasy, which is as unscriptural as it is hurtful.
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary
That is, the great promise which God made to Abraham, and his seed, that they should possess that rich and pleasant part of the world, the land of Canaan, under which also heaven itself was typically promised and comprehended, was not made upon condition of their performing perfect obedience to the law, but they were to obtain it by faith; that is, by trusting to, and depending upon the gracious promise of a faithful God.
Note here, The argument couched for justification by faith without works, which is the apostle’s grand scope, design and drift; it runs thus: “If a promise made to the father of the faithful was accomplished, not by legal obedience, but by the righteousness of faith; then it follows, that all his children are justified by faith, as Abraham their father was. But the promise of the earthly inheritance, and under it, of the heavenly one, was accomplished, not by the law, but by the righteousness of Abraham’s faith: Therefore, justification is not to be expected by the works of the law, but by faith alone.”
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Vv. 13, 14. For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not made to Abraham, or to his seed, by the law, but by the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise annulled.
The for bears on the understood objection which we have just explained: For it need not be imagined that the promised inheritance is to be obtained by means of the law, and that the people of the law are consequently assured of it. Paul knew that this thought lay deep in the heart of every Jew. He attacks it unsparingly, demonstrating that the very opposite is the truth; for the law, far from procuring the promised inheritance for the Jews, would infallibly deprive them of it.
The possession of the world, of which the apostle speaks, had been promised to Abraham and his posterity in three forms.1. In the promise made to the patriarch of the land of Canaan. For, from the prophetic and Messianic point of view, which dominated the history of the patriarchal family from the beginning, the land of Canaan was the emblem of the sanctified earth; it was the point of departure for the glorious realization of the latter. In this sense it is said in the Tanchuma:God gave our father Abraham possession of the heavens and earth. 2. Several promises of another kind naturally led to the extension of the possession of the promised land to that of the whole world; for example, the three following, Gen 12:3 : In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed; Gen 22:17 : Thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; Gen 22:18 : In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. The two expressions: in thee, and in thy seed, alternate in these promises. But they are combined, as in our passage, in the verses, Gen 26:3-4, where we also again find the two ideas of the possession of Canaan, and the blessing of the whole world through Israel. 3. Above all these particular promises there ever rested the general promise of the Messianic kingdom, the announcement of that descendant of David to whom God had said: I have given thee the uttermost parts of the earth for an inheritance (Psa 2:8). Now Israel was inseparable from its Messiah, and such an explanation led men to give to the preceding promises the widest and most elevated sense possible. Israel had not been slow to follow this direction; but its carnal spirit had given to the universal supremacy which it expected, a yet more political than religious complexion. Jesus, on the contrary, in His Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere, had translated this idea of dominion over the world into that of the humble love which rules by serving: Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth. The apostle does not here enter on the question of how the promise is to be fulfilled; he deals only with the condition on which it is to be enjoyed. Is the law or faith the way of entering into the possession of this divine inheritance, and consequently are the people of law or of faith the heirs?
The word inheritance, to express ownership, reproduces the Hebrew name Nachala, which was used to designate the land of Canaan. This country was regarded as a heritage which Israel, Jehovah’s first-born son, had received from his heavenly Father.
To prove that the inheriting seed is not Israel, but the nation of believers, Jews or Gentiles, Paul does not use, as Meyer, Hodge, and others suppose, the same argument as he follows in Gal 3:15 et seq. He does not argue here from the fact that the law was given subsequently to the patriarchal covenant, and could make no change in that older contract, which was founded solely on the promise on the one hand, and faith on the other. The demonstration in our passage has not this historical character; it is, if one may so speak, dogmatic in its nature. Its meaning is to this effect: If the possession of the world were to be the reward of observing the law, the promise would thereby be reduced to a nullity. This declaration is enunciated Rom 4:14, and proved Rom 4:15. The inference is drawn Rom 4:16.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
For not through the law was the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he should be heir of the world, but through the righteousness of faith. [In this third division of his argument Paul shows that Abraham did not obtain the promise of heirship for himself and his seed through the agency of the law, but by reason of the righteousness reckoned to him because of his faith. Many promises were given to Abraham (Gen 12:7; Gen 13:14-15; Gen 15:13; Gen 17:8; Gen 22:17), and Paul sums them all up in the phrase, “that he should be heir of the world.” This phrase has been variously explained, but it obviously means that Abraham should inherit the world as his spiritual children, and that his children should inherit it also as their spiritual family or household. The heirship of Abraham in no way conflicts with that of Christ or God. Comp. Rom 8:17]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
MILLENNIUM
13. For the promise to Abraham and his seed, that he should be the heir of the world, was not through the works, but through the righteousness of faith. The covenant with Abraham was simply the renovation of the Messianic (Gal 3:16), by which Christ purchased this world with His blood. Hence it is here stated that Abraham is to inherit the world. A title made to a man is valid to his children forever. Hence Abrahams seed, i. e., Christ, is to inherit the whole earth in the millennium, in due time renovated, and possess it forever. Hence, if you would be a member of the glorified Bridehood and reign with Christ a thousand years (Rev 20:4-6), you must be a child of Abraham. Hence it is positively specified that this inheritance is not through the law, i. e., you do not get it by good works, but through faith.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 13
Or to his seed through the law; to those who were his seed or descendants through the law, that is, through the Jewish system. In other words, by the seed of Abraham were intended all who were spiritually like him, not merely those connected with the ceremonial system of which he was the head. That this is the meaning, is evident from Romans 4:16.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
4:13 {11} For the promise, that he should be the {h} heir of the world, [was] not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the {i} law, but through the righteousness of faith.
(11) A reason why the seed of Abraham is to be considered to be by faith, because Abraham himself through faith was made partaker of the promise by which he was made the father of all nations.
(h) That all the nations of the world should be his children: or by the “world” may be understood the land of Canaan.
(i) For works that he had done, or upon this condition, that he should fulfil the Law.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
4. The priority of faith to the promise concerning headship of many nations 4:13-17
The Jews believed that they had a claim on Abraham that Gentiles did not have. Obviously he was the father of their nation, and this did place him in a unique relationship to his physical descendants. However, they incorrectly concluded that all the blessings that God had promised Abraham would come to them alone. Paul reminded his readers that part of God’s promised blessing to Abraham was that he would be the father of many nations (Rom 4:17). God had given him this promise after his justification (Gen 17:4-6), and God repeated it to Abraham’s descendants (Gen 22:17-18). These nations included the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and many others including Gentile nations. Therefore the Israelites were not the only people God had promised to bless. They did not have a corner on God’s blessings.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
God gave His promise to bless the Gentiles through Abraham long before He gave the Mosaic Law. Consequently it was wrong for the Jews to think that the blessing of the Gentiles depended on their obedience to the Law. It depended on God’s faithfulness to His promise. God gave that promise to Abraham not because of his obedience but because of his faith. The giving of that promise even antedated Abraham’s circumcision.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 11
ABRAHAM (2)
Rom 4:13-25
AGAIN we approach the name of Abraham, Friend of God, Father of the Faithful. We have seen him justified by faith, personally accepted because turning altogether to the sovereign Promiser. We see him now in some of the glorious issues of that acceptance; “Heir of the world,” “Father of many nations.” And here too all is of grace, all comes through faith. Not works, not merit, not ancestral and ritual privilege, secured to Abraham the mighty Promise; it was his because he, pleading absolutely nothing of personal worthiness, and supported by no guarantees of ordinance, “believed God.”
We see him as he steps out from his tent under that glorious canopy, that Syrian “night of stars.” We look up with him to the mighty depths, and receive their impression upon our eyes. Behold the innumerable points and clouds of light! Who can count the half-visible rays which make white the heavens, gleaming behind, beyond, the thousands of more numerable luminaries? The lonely old man who stands gazing there, perhaps side by side with his divine Friend manifested in human form, is told to try to count. And then he hears the promise, “So shall thy seed be.”
It was then and there that he received justification by faith. It was then and there also that, by faith, as a man uncovenanted, unworthy, but called upon to take what God gave, he received the promise that he should be “heir of the world.”
It was an unequalled paradox-unless indeed we place beside it the scene when, eighteen centuries later, in the same land, a descendant of Abrahams, a Syrian Craftsman, speaking as a religious Leader to His followers, told them {Mat 13:37-38} that the “field was the world,” and He the Master of the field.
“Heir of the world”! Did this mean, of the universe itself? Perhaps it did, for Christ was to be the Claimant of the promise in due time; and under His feet all things, literally all, are set already in right, and shall be hereafter set in fact. But the more limited, and probably in this place the fitter, reference is vast enough; a reference to “the world” of earth, and of man upon it. In his “seed,” that childless senior was to be King of Men, Monarch of the continents and oceans. To him, in his seed, “the utmost parts of the earth” were given “for his possession.” Not his little clan only, encamped on the dark fields around him, nor even the direct descendants only of his body, however numerous, but “all nations,” “all kindreds of the earth,” were “to call him blessed,” and to be blessed in him, as their patriarchal Chief, their Head in covenant with God. “We see not yet all things” fulfilled of this astonishing grant and guarantee. We shall not do so, till vast promised developments of the ways of God have come to sight. But we do see already steps taken towards that issue, steps long, majestic, never to be retraced. We see at this hour in literally every region of the human world the messengers-an always more numerous army-of the Name of “the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” They are working everywhere: and everywhere, notwithstanding innumerable difficulties, they are winning the world for the great Heir of the Promise. Through paths they know not these missionaries have gone out; paths hewn by the historical providence of God, and by His eternal life in the Church, and in the soul. When “the world” has seemed shut, by war, by policy, by habit, by geography, it has opened, that they may enter; till we see Japan throwing back its castle doors, and inner Africa not only discovered but become a household word for the sake of its missions, of its martyrdoms, of the resolve of its native chiefs to abolish slavery even in its domestic form.
No secular conscious programme has had to do with this. Causes entirely beyond the reach of human combination have been, as a fact, combined; the world has been opened to the Abrahamic message just as the Church has been inspired anew to enter in, and has been awakened to a deeper understanding of her glorious mission. For here too is the finger of God; not only in the history of the world, but in the life of the Church and of the Christian. For a long century now, in the most living centres of Christendom, there has been waking and rising a mighty revived consciousness of the glory of the Gospel, of the Cross, and of the Spirit; of the grace of Christ, and also of His claim. And at this hour, after many a gloomy forecast of unbelieving and apprehensive thought, there are more men and women ready to go to the ends of the earth with the message of the Son of Abraham, than in all time before.
Contrast these issues, even these-leaving out of sight the mighty future-with the starry night when the wandering Friend of God was asked to believe the incredible, and was justified by faith, and was invested through faith with the worlds crown. Is not God indeed in the fulfilment? Was He not indeed in the promise? We are ourselves a part of the fulfilment; we, one of the “many Nations” of whom the great Solitary was then made “the Father.” Let us bear our witness, and set to our seal.
In doing so, we attest and illustrate the work, the ever blessed work, of faith. That mans reliance, at that great midnight hour, merited nothing, but received everything. He took in the first place acceptance with God, and then with it, as it were folded and embedded in it, he took riches inexhaustible of privilege and blessing; above all, the blessing of being made a blessing. So now, in view of that hour of Promise, and of these ages of fulfilment, we see our own path of peace in its divine simplicity. We read, as if written on the heavens in stars, the words, “Justified by Faith.” And we understand already, what the Epistle will soon amply unfold to us, how for us, as for Abraham, blessings untold of other orders lie treasured in the grant of our acceptance “Not for him only, but for us also, believing.”
Let us turn again to the text.
For not through law came the promise to Abraham, or to his seed, of his being the worlds heir, but through faiths righteousness; through the acceptance received by uncovenanted, unprivileged faith. For if those who belong to law inherit Abrahams promise, faith is ipso facto void, and the promise is ipso facto annulled. For wrath is what the Law works out; it is only where law is not that transgression is not, either. As much as to say, that to suspend eternal blessing, the blessing which in its nature can deal only with ideal conditions, upon mans obedience to law, is to bar fatally the hope of a fulfilment. Why? Not because the Law is not holy; not because disobedience is not guilty; as if man were ever, for a moment, mechanically compelled to disobey. But because as a fact man is a fallen being, however he became so. and whatever is his guilt as such. He is fallen, and has no true self-restoring power. If then he is to be blessed, the work must begin in spite of himself. It must come from without, it must come unearned, it must be of grace, through faith. Therefore it is on (literally, “out of”) faith, in order to be grace-wise, to make secure the promise, to all the seed, not only to that which belongs to the Law, but to that which belongs to the faith of Abraham, to the “seed” whose claim is no less and no more than Abrahams faith; who is father of all us, as it stands written, {Gen 17:5} “Father of many Nations have I appointed thee”-in the sight of the God whom he believed, who vivifies the dead, and calls, addresses, deals with, things not-being as being. “In the sight of God”; as if to say, that it matters little what Abraham is for “us all” in the sight of man, in the sight and estimate of the Pharisee. The Eternal Justifier and Promiser dealt with Abraham and in him with the world, before the birth of that Law which the Pharisee has perverted into his rampart of privilege and isolation. He took care that the mighty transaction should take place not actually only, but significantly, in the open field and beneath the boundless cope of stars. It was to affect not one tribe, but all the nations. It was to secure blessings which were not to be demanded by the privileged, but taken by the needy. And so the great representative Believer was called to believe before Law, before legal Sacrament, and under every personal circumstance of humiliation and discouragement. Who, past hope, on hope, believed; stepping from the dead hope of nature to the bare hope of the promise, so that he became father of many Nations; according to what stands spoken, “So shall thy seed be.” And, because he failed not in his faith, he did not notice his own body, already turned to death, near a century old as he now was, and the death state of the womb of Sarah. No, on the promise of God-he did not waver by his unbelief, but received strength by his faith, giving glory to God, the “glory” of dealing with Him as being what He is, Almighty and All-true, and fully persuaded that what He has promised He is able actually to do. Wherefore actually it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Not because such a “giving to God the glory” which is only His eternal due was morally meritorious, in the least degree. If it were so, Abraham “would have whereof to glory,” The “wherefore” is concerned with the whole record, the whole transaction. Here was a man who took the right way to receive sovereign blessing. He interposed nothing between the Promiser and himself. He treated the Promiser as what He is, all-sufficient and all-faithful. He opened his empty hand in that persuasion, and so, because the hand was empty, the blessing was laid upon its palm.
Now it was not written only on his account, that it was reckoned to him, but also on account of us, to whom it is sure to be reckoned, in the fixed intention of the divine Justifier, as each successive applicant comes to receive; believing as we do on the Raiser-up of Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered up on account of our transgressions, and was raised up on account of our justification.
Here the great argument moves to a pause, to the cadence of a glorious rest. More and more, as we have pursued it, it has disengaged itself from the obstructions of the opponent, and advanced with a larger motion into a positive and rejoicing assertion of the joys and wealth of the believing. We have left far behind the pertinacious cavils which ask, now whether there is any hope for man outside legalism, now whether within legalism there can be any danger even for deliberate unholiness, and again whether the Gospel of gratuitous acceptance does not cancel the law of duty. We have left the Pharisee for Abraham, and have stood beside him to look and listen. He, in the simplicity of a soul which has seen itself and seen the Lord, and so has not one word, one thought, about personal privilege, claim, or even fitness, receives a perfect acceptance in the hand of faith, and finds that the acceptance carries with it a promise of unimaginable power and blessing. And now from Abraham the Apostle turns to “us,” “us all,” “us also.” His thoughts are no longer upon adversaries and objections, but on the company of the faithful, on those who are one with Abraham, and with each other, in their happy willingness to come, without a dream of merit, and, take from God His mighty peace in the name of Christ. He finds himself not in synagogue or in school, disputing, but in the believing assembly, teaching, unfolding in peace the wealth of grace. He speaks to congratulate, to adore.
Let us join him there in spirit, and sit down with Aquila and Priscilla, with Nereus, and Nymphas, and Persis, and in our turn remember that “it was written for us also.” Quite surely, and with a fulness of blessing which we can never find out in its perfection, to us also “faith is sure to be reckoned, . as righteousness, believing as we do, , on the Raised-up of Jesus our Lord, ours also, from the dead.” To us, as to them, the Father presents Himself as the Raiser-up of the Son. He is known by us in that act. It gives us His own warrant for a boundless trust in His character, His purposes, His unreserved intention to accept the sinner who comes to His feet in the name of His Crucified and Risen Son. He bids us-not forget that He is the Judge, who cannot for a moment connive. But He bids us believe, He bids us see, that He, being the Judge, and also the Law Giver, has dealt with His own Law, in a way that satisfies it, that satisfies Himself. He bids us thus understand that He now “is sure to” justify, to accept, to find not guilty, to find righteous, satisfactory, the sinner who believes. He comes to us, He, this eternal Father of our Lord, to assure us, in the Resurrection, that He has sought, and has “found, a Ransom”; that He has not been prevailed upon to have mercy, a mercy behind which there may therefore lurk a gloomy reserve, but has Himself “set forth” the beloved Propitiation, and then accepted Him (not it, but Him) with the acceptance of not His word only but His deed. He is the God of Peace. How do we know it? We thought He was the God of the tribunal, and the doom. Yes; but He has “brought the great Shepherd from the dead, in the blood of the everlasting Covenant”. {Heb 13:20} Then, O eternal Father of our Lord, we will believe Thee; we will believe in Thee; we will, we do, in the very letter of the words Thou , as in a deep repose. Truly, in this glorious respect, though Thou art consuming Fire, “there is nothing in Thee to dread.”
“Who was delivered up because, of our transgressions.” So dealt the Father with the Son, who gave Himself. “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him”; “He spared not His own Son.” “Because of our transgressions”; to meet the fact that we had gone astray. What, was that fact thus to be met? Was our self-will, our pride, our falsehood, our impurity, our indifference to God, our resistance to God, to be thus met? Was it to be met at all, and not rather left utterly alone to its own horrible issues?
Was it eternally necessary that, if met, it must be met thus, by nothing less than the delivering up of Jesus our Lord? It was even so. Assuredly if a milder expedient would have met our guilt, the Father would not have “delivered up” the Son. The Cross was nothing if not an absolute sine qua non. There is that sin, and in God, which made it eternally necessary that-if man was to be justified-the Son of God must not only live, but die, and not only die, but die thus, delivered up, given over to be done to death, as those who do great sin are done.
Deep in the heart of the divine doctrine of Atonement lies this element of it, the “because of our transgressions”; the exigency of Golgotha, due to our sins. The remission, the acquittal, the acceptance, was not a matter for the verbal fiat of Divine autocracy. It was a matter not between God and creation, which to Him is “a little thing,” but between God and His Law, that is to say, Himself, as He is eternal Judge. And this, to the Eternal, is not a little thing. So the solution called for no little thing, but for the Atoning Death, for the laying by the Father on the Son of the iniquities of us all, that we might open our arms and receive from the Father the merits of the Son.
“And was raised up because of our justification”: because our acceptance had been won, by His deliverance up. Such is the simplest explanation of the grammar, and of the import. The Lords Resurrection appears as, so to speak, the mighty sequel, and also the demonstration, warrant, proclamation, of His acceptance as the Propitiation, and therefore of our acceptance in Him. For indeed it was our justification, when He paid our penalty. True, the acceptance does not accrue to the individual till he believes, and so receives. The gift is not put into the hand till it is open, and empty. But the gift has been bought ready for the recipient long before he kneels to receive it. It was his, in provision, from the moment of the purchase; and the glorious Purchaser came up from the depths where He had gone down to buy, holding aloft in His sacred hands the golden Gift, ours because His for us.
A little while before he wrote to Rome St. Paul had written to Corinth, and the same truth was in his soul then, though it came out only passingly, while with infinite impressiveness. “If Christ is not risen, idle is your faith; you are yet in your sins”. {1Co 15:17} That is to say, so the context irrefragably shows, you are yet in the guilt of your sins; you are still unjustified. “In your sins” cannot possibly there refer to the moral condition of the converts; for as a matter of fact, which no doctrine could negative, the Corinthians were “changed men.” “In your sins” refers therefore to guilt, to law, to acceptance. And it bids them look to the Atonement as the objective sine qua non for that, and to the Resurrection as the one possible, and the only necessary, warrant to faith that the Atonement had secured its end.
“Who was delivered up; who was raised up.” When? About twenty-five years before Paul sat dictating this sentence in the house of Gaius. There were at that moment about three hundred known living people, at least, {1Co 15:6} who had seen the Risen One with open eyes, and heard Him with conscious ears. From one point of view, all was eternal, spiritual, invisible. From another point of view our salvation was as concrete, as historical, as much a thing of place and date, as the battle of Actium, or the death of Socrates. And what was done, remains done.
“Can length of years on God Himself exact, And make that fiction which was once a fact?”